


Worthwhile

by xxystos



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Friends, Complete, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Minor Character Death, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-09-29 22:50:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxystos/pseuds/xxystos
Summary: As sudden as a crack of lightning, Felix realizes what he truly fears.“I don’t want to lose anyone else. I don’t want to lose anyone ever again. I don’t want—” His voice catches as the muscles in his throat contract. “I don’t want to lose you.”“I’m not going anywhere,” Sylvain assures him. “I swear.”Felix has endured innumerable hardships throughout his young life, but he's always made it through thanks to the presence of a certain redhead.





	1. The Tragedy of Duscur

**Author's Note:**

> Explicit sexual and violent content starts later in the fic. Tags will be updated as events occur.
> 
> This fic will be updated daily while I'm on break, one chapter a day, unless noted beforehand.

Glenn is scheduled to arrive later tonight from a very important excursion. Though Felix knows little of the affairs of a knight, he knows it to be a tasking job that requires plenty of strength, skill, stamina, and loyalty. His brother possesses all of those traits, and Felix is adamant about spreading the word of his admired brother’s achievements. 

He hasn’t let up with the praises, in fact, since Glenn was first knighted. Not much time has passed since then, but Glenn being gone so often and for such long periods of time still feels relatively new to Felix. Felix, who had once had company throughout the day, now does things alone, and he cannot seem to find solace in loneliness.

Sparring, especially, is something that he struggles to find normalcy in. Without Glenn, Felix is forced to wrangle against unmoving, faceless, brainless scarecrows. Lack of counterattack means the task is boring and, more often than not, he’d rather practice another skill to surprise his favorite sibling.

Recently, he has picked up on magic. Rodrigue refuses to mentor him in tomefaire, so he often sneaks into the estate’s library to pick up discarded tomes. “Real mages don’t use tomes,” Sylvain had once slyly told him, but books are the only way Felix can think of to pick up on the art without disturbing his father.

Felix is as excited as a bubbly toddler to show Glenn his new talent. Though far from proficient, he has managed to light candles and dry leaves with a weak spark of Thunder when concentrating hard enough. Glenn will be proud. Though he often hides it under a layer of smugness, Glenn loves his younger brother unconditionally. After years of learning to read him, Felix has learned this.

Felix, Sylvain, and Ingrid await Glenn’s arrival under the shade of a willow, counting clouds to pass the time. Felix notes the way Ingrid is trembling in excitement, and he dares venture the guess that she may be even more excited than he. 

She does, after all, admire his knightly exploits more than anyone else. Hell, she even seeks to emulate him later in her life. Even Felix cannot say as much; sure, he admires swordplay and strength, but he’s never been fond of the idea of dedicating one’s life to a liege. 

A life is too valuable to be given wholeheartedly to another. This is especially true regarding Glenn’s life.

Sylvain points toward a cumulus cloud and laughs, the sound tinging the air with sweet summer joy, and states coyly, “Looks like boobs.”

Ingrid smacks him with a twig, and the group erupts in laughter. Felix thoroughly enjoys times like these, where they are all joined at the hip and can indulge in each other’s company, but he finds today is somehow better than usual. Perhaps it’s the anxiety that pricks at his skin, the excitement. Glenn is coming. Just the thought is enough to bring a smile to his face.

They wait for what feels like an eternity, and eventually the three end up lying on their backs in the grass, still idly pointing at things to distract themselves. Felix, at Sylvain’s prompting, sets fire to a few falling leaves with Thunder, and Ingrid is downright amazed at the fluttering flames. “It’s not that impressive,” Sylvain insists, but his bright eyes contradict his words.

When it grows too dark to see anymore, Miklan rushes out to herd them back inside. “But Glenn isn’t here yet,” Felix protests weakly. Milkan only shrugs, already scowling at their defiance. 

Felix has never been particularly fond of Miklan. Something about him rubs Felix the wrong way, especially his demeanor toward his younger brother. Glenn would never speak of Felix in this way, he’s certain, and so the disdain Miklan shows toward Sylvain is an immediate repellant. 

Even so, knowing his father is likely behind the order, Felix follows the others inside.

Glenn has come home late from an outing before, so Felix isn’t particularly worried as he and the others cram into his room. 

It has always been like this; Ingrid dislikes sleeping alone and refuses to use Glenn’s room even though Rodrigue insists she may, and Sylvain would rather sleep in a barn filled with brigands than share a room with his brother. So they all cram into Felix’s room for the night.

The boys tussle for bed privileges. Sylvain is stronger and pins Felix to the floor easily, breathing only slightly perturbed at the display. “Cool,” he says with a laugh, holding Felix down by the shoulders. “If I wasn’t a ladies’ man, I would take the bed.”

“Why wrestle when you always give me the bed anyway?” Ingrid asks, already fluffing pillows and preparing to sink beneath the sheets. 

“I wonder, too,” Felix says, using the distraction to shove Sylvain off of him. He rubs his sore shoulders after sitting up, fingers lingering on a spot where he knows a bruise will form by the following morn. “Seems to me you have a superiority complex.”

Sylvain glances at him, lips pursed in a gentle pout, before lunging again. They’re a rabble of laughter, Ingrid included, when Rodrigue gently opens Felix’s door and peeks inside. “Father,” Felix breathes, quickly shoving Sylvain again and smoothing his own clothing. 

Rodrigue only smiles, eyes hovering over the lot of them briefly, before stating, “It would be best if you all slept well tonight. Glenn will be here by tomorrow morn, I am sure.”

With that, he closes the door, and the three rush to throw on sleepwear. “You’d better not keep us up again,” Ingrid says to Sylvain with a scowl, though the glint in her eyes belies her words. The three are restless, inebriated by the sheer presence they share, and Ingrid throwing pillows to the floor only amps the excitement. 

“You’ll be the one keeping us up,” Sylvain snaps, tossing his daywear at her.

More paraphernalia flies and, in the mess, a pillow hits the candle that had illuminated the room. Ingrid lets loose a gentle _eep!_ before ducking beneath the covers; she still harbors a small fear of the darkness and Felix throws his hand over Sylvain’s mouth before he can make an accusatory comment.

The boys fall to the floor and Sylvain, as disgusting as he is, licks Felix’s hand to force it away from his lips. “What was that for?” His tone falls short of being assertive, but Felix cannot see his face to be sure.

“Go to sleep,” he mutters instead, vaguely aware of the way his moist hand feels cold against the air. He has the urge to wash, but instead cleans his palm against the fabric of Sylvain’s shirt. “Don’t do anything weird tonight.”

“Weird?”

“I’m with Felix,” Ingrid says from her perch. “If I hear anything down there—”

“Woah, woah,” Sylvain interrupts, making some vague movement in the darkness. “I would never!”

Felix and Ingrid fall silent, both knowing full well that his words lack sincerity. “Need I remind you of what you did last time we were all here?” she says, turning to face the wall. None of them truly wish to remember the night Sylvain, considering himself some silent ninja, decided to stroke himself. To completion.

Sylvain stays silent at that. Instead of countering, he places his arms behind his head and lies against the hardwood. In the dim light, Felix can see Sylvain’s eyes hovering over his own. “I won’t this time,” Sylvain mouths, countenance stern.

Felix grimaces before lying beside him. “You’d better not. Pervert.”

“It was _once_.”

“One time too many,” Ingrid says. “Now shut up. Pervert.”

* * *

The following day is strikingly similar to its predecessor. 

After a hearty meal, the three return to their prized willow and wait once more for Glenn. Ingrid’s fingers twitch with anticipation as, with little else to occupy her mind, she braids Felix’s hair.

“We should play a game or something,” Sylvain offers, chin in his hands. He leans against the stump of the tree, watching Ingrid’s handiwork, before closing his eyes to think. “We played ‘I Spy’ yesterday…. How about ‘Truth or Dare’ today?”

It’s startlingly in character for Sylvain to take the liberty of going first, immediately deciding that his own fate will be Dare. 

“I dare you to shut up,” Ingrid offers, glancing at him briefly before returning her focus to Felix’s locks. “Also, we didn’t play “I Spy.’ We just looked at clouds.”

Sylvain whines. “Come on! This is so boring!”

Felix glances at him and, wearily, gestures for Sylvain to plant himself where his hands can reach. “I can do your hair, too.”

Usually, Sylvain would shy away from being groomed. He likes his hair done a certain way—a messy side-do, easily done with the stroke of a few fingers. But today he inches closer, leaning his back against Felix’s chest, making his bright red hair available for touching.

“Too close,” Felix warns, feeling somewhat suffocated. His hands snake up Sylvain’s shoulders to push him off, but he doesn’t budge. 

“Fine. No hair. Just let me stay here.” After a long beat, “Why is Glenn taking so long? Do you think his trip got extended?”

“That would be nice,” Ingrid offers, still working her fingers through Felix’s thin hair. “Can you imagine what an honor that would be?” She sighs, sounding as dreamily enamored as she always does when Glenn is the topic on her tongue, and Felix is glad that Glenn’s betrothed appreciates him as much as he does. 

They sit like that for a time and, with nothing better to do, Felix runs his fingers through Sylvain’s hair. In any other circumstance, the three might have fallen asleep in the shade and woke when their stomachs indicated that it was lunchtime. 

Today, however, anticipation flows through Felix’s veins, and Ingrid, too, is excited to see Glenn and ask of his adventure. Sylvain is the only one who might find himself drifting off, but Felix notes the occasional flutter of his lashes. 

“Look,” Sylvain mutters groggily after a bit, finger extended toward the horizon. “I see…a rider.”

His eye is keen; the rider in question arrives moments later, breath uneven and holding a familiar scabbard. “Ho, there!” he calls when he approaches. “I seek an audience with Duke Fraldarius! Is he present?”

Felix raises a brow at the stranger’s demeanor. It’s uncommon for guests to arrive and so formally request an audience with his father. Even stranger is the second set of legs behind him, with arms wrapped around the rider’s torso, and a face hidden beneath a thick black shawl. The rider takes his silence as uncertainty and spurs his horse into action once again, kicking up a thin cloud of dust as he departs. 

“Weird,” Sylvain says, rising from his perch against Felix’s chest to watch the stranger disappear, and his voice puts words to Felix’s intangible thoughts. “He was in a rush. Maybe we should follow him.”

For whatever reason, a sense of urgency brings Felix immediately to his feet. His hair falls against his back, braid loosening without Ingrid’s fingers to support it, and he leads the others back inside.

Perhaps that had been his mistake. 

Perhaps he may have been better off sitting under that willow for the rest of the day, naively awaiting his brother’s arrival in the company of his two best friends. 

But he doesn’t stay in the shade, and the three arrive just in time to hear the messenger say, “…has died in combat, alongside the majority of the Kingdom’s nobility.” The messenger pulls the scabbard from his hip and hands it reverently to Rodrigue. “I am…profoundly apologetic.”

Felix’s breath catches in his throat as his father holds Glenn’s weapon of choice. Time comes to a standstill as his eyes hover over his father’s lips, awaiting a reaction, expecting a jovial laugh and a “What a funny joke!”

But Rodrigue’s brows furrow, darkening his expression, and his fingers wrap against the sheathed hilt of his son’s blade. 

“As the late King Lambert’s most trusted friend, we in his service had hoped…you might take his son under your wing.” The cloaked boy steps forward after being prompted, and the shawl falls away to reveal a soulless husk of a blonde. “I do hope you might be able to see past your grief and accept him into your care, sir.”

Rodrigue hesitates, holding Glenn’s weapon feebly between his fingers, before nodding. Conceding. “Glenn died honorably, as any knight would wish,” he mutters into the fray, and the world shatters around Felix. Unwittingly, a sound escapes his lips, alerting his father, the messenger, and the crown prince to his presence. Rodrigue watches him with a blank expression.

Felix claps a hand over his mouth, sensing bile, and shoves past a tearful Ingrid and a shocked Sylvain. His legs move of their own accord, throat tight, and tears threaten to spill as what the messenger had come to say truly resonates with him.

Still, he cannot believe. He cannot grasp the idea of his closest companion being…gone. He had sparred with Glenn just weeks ago, before he had been summoned. He had nearly landed a hit. He had promised to improve and, one day, beat his cocky older brother.

And now he could never.

He could never keep that promise, or spar with his best mentor, or see his brother’s pretentious smile after an excursion. He could never show off his new skills in magic, or tell him anecdotes of Sylvain’s horrendous flirting habits, or watch Ingrid cling to him as she would to a deity. Glenn is gone. Glenn is dead.

As the thought settles, his knees give way and he finds himself crouched in a secluded hallway, stifling sobs with the back of his hand. 

_Glenn is dead._

Felix’s breath hitches as he tries, to no avail, to stop himself from coming undone. His thoughts are a jumbled mess of _Glenn is dead_ and _pull yourself together, he wouldn’t want to see you like this._ Unable to decipher which train of thought is the correct one to follow, he leans against a wall and covers his mouth with both hands.

He’s struggling to breathe, throat too tight around his windpipe, when he hears rapidly approaching footsteps. He doesn’t wish to see anyone, not in this state, but his legs refuse to move. He gulps down on the pain, a shaky hand finding its way to the wall to steady himself, but he’s too late to escape the person darting in his direction.

“Felix,” Sylvain says, clasping his hands against Felix’s shuddering shoulders. “Oh my gods, Felix, I’m so sorry. I—” He stops himself, pulling Felix into a hug from behind, and shakes his head gently. “Gods, Felix. Gods.” They remain wrapped up like that for some time, while Felix steadies himself with deep breaths, but Sylvain speaks again and wrecks his efforts. “It’s okay. Let it out. Don’t hold back. I’m here for you, Felix. I’m—”

Felix cries. Sobs. His body trembles with the exertion, and he dry heaves more than once as his throat muscles give way. Tears flow freely. Cries and words mix into an incoherent mess. 

Sylvain stays. 

It might be minutes, it might be hours, but Sylvain stays the entire time, arms secure and warm, and his lips murmur reassurance into the crook of Felix’s neck. Felix is tired, overexerted, and he leans into the touch. 

Soon, his tears have faltered, and all he can do is attempt to catch his breath. In, out. In, out. 

“Better?” Sylvain asks gently, as if afraid his words might rupture the peace. 

Felix asks himself the same question. A part of him, a vital piece, has been stolen away; he will never be okay again. He will never be the same again without his brother to guide him. His throat tightens once again, but his eyes have been exhausted of tears and his debilitated body refuses to bawl anymore.

“Better,” he assures, voice as weak and unsteady as he feels. “How’s Ingrid?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sylvain says, face still pressed against Felix’s neck. His words reverberate through Felix’s skin, a placid vibration. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Felix ponders over the offer as he forces himself to inhale and exhale. “I don’t want to be here,” he says weakly after a while. “Can you take me to my room?”

Sylvain obliges, slinging Felix’s arm over his shoulder to aid him, and they meander toward his quarters. Staff and servants who would normally acknowledge them do all that is in their capacity to avoid them. One offers Sylvain a handkerchief to dapple against Felix’s brow. 

Felix’s room is dark and musty upon entering, but its desolate nature is exactly what he’d been craving. As soon as he hears Sylvain click the door shut, he lets loose a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Thank you,” he murmurs, voice almost completely worn. 

Sylvain lowers Felix onto the bed, but Felix’s grip remains tight. “Should I stay?” Sylvain asks hesitantly, already lifting a knee to get on beside him. 

Solitude is desired, but Felix knows it’s the last thing he truly needs at the moment. What he wants is to close himself off to the rest of the world, to wallow in grief and anger, to be consumed with these relentless emotions. 

But he’s also afraid of feeling lonely.

He clings to Sylvain’s sleeve, pulling him so close that their noses nearly touch, and stares deeply at him for perhaps the first time. Sylvain. Felix and Ingrid are close, too, but Ingrid has always been there solely because of her status—her relationship with Glenn. Sylvain is different. Sylvain is closer. In a way, Felix feels like he can trust Sylvain more than he would trust Ingrid.

Sylvain saw him in that hallway. He heard his sobs. He saw him at his worst. And, still, he stayed. Still, he comforts Felix as best he can. 

Felix grazes a thumb over Sylvain’s cheek thoughtlessly.

Sylvain parts his lips to speak, gaze inquisitive, but Felix shakes his head gently, an outright refusal, and sighs. “I won’t—I can’t cry anymore,” he croaks, pointing at his sore throat for proof. If he wasn’t so tired, he would most certainly continue, but his body is spent; he doesn’t mention that to Sylvain. “Sorry.”

“For what? Being sad? You have nothing to apologize for.” Felix bites his lip and glances in another direction, and Sylvain uses that moment to shift away. “It’s okay to be sad, Felix.”

“He was alone,” Felix says slowly, fingers still curled around the thick fabric of Sylvain’s outerwear. “He was…far from home. And alone. Do you think he was scared?” His emotions begin to boil over once more, but his tear ducts ran dry ages ago, so he wipes at parched eyes while breathing heavily. “He—”

“Hey, now,” Sylvain says, brows knitted, attempting to disrupt the endless flow of Felix’s words.

“He died alone,” Felix finishes, covering his eyes. “There was—I couldn’t—he—”

Sylvain, the same person who would laugh in Ingrid’s face after a mishap or crack an ill-advised joke during a serious moment, wraps an arm around Felix’s torso and draws him near. His touch is comforting; his voice against Felix’s earlobe is gentle. “Don’t start thinking it was your fault. It wasn’t. You had nothing to do with it. Nobody blames you.” After a brief contemplative pause, “Glenn wouldn’t blame you, either.”

Felix gulps, slow and deliberate, and lowers his hand from his eyes to stare at Sylvain. His gaze is more serious than Felix has ever seen it and, as sudden as a crack of lightning, Felix realizes what he truly fears. 

“I don’t want to lose anyone else. I don’t want to lose anyone ever again. I don’t want—” His voice catches as the muscles in his throat contract. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sylvain assures him. “I swear.”

“Swear?” Felix repeats softly, breath little more than a wisp of wind. His grip around Sylvain’s sleeve goes limp; his hand falls into Sylvain’s open palm, and their fingers intertwine. “What do you swear?”

Sylvain tosses him a questioning look, as though the answer to his query is obvious, but states, “I swear I’m not going anywhere. I won’t die before you. I’ll be here for you for as long as you need me to.”

“Me too,” Felix replies, voice still raspy and weak, and his fingers squeeze against Sylvain’s softly. “I won’t die first, either.”

Sylvain chuckles, an airy sound, and smiles at him. “That doesn’t make any sense, Felix.”

“Why not?”

“I won’t die first. You won’t die first. Then, what? Are we both gonna live forever?”

Felix hums pensively, eyelids drooping. “We’ll die together.”

Even then, at the tender age of thirteen, Felix senses the immaturity in his words. What a selfish promise he has just forced his friend to make. 

But he doesn’t retract his words. He wants the reassurance. He wants to be greedy.

Sylvain presses Felix’s head against his chest as he begins to drift off. “Okay. Neither of us gets to die first. We’ll die together.”

“Say it,” Felix mumbles into his ribcage. “Say you solemnly swear.”

Sylvain laughs, and the sound is yet another kind reassurance. “I solemnly swear we’ll die together.”


	2. Disinheritance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory domestic fluff chapter with a touch of angst.

The first few months without Glenn are catastrophic. Felix can hardly return to his training regimen; holding wooden training weapons only reminds him of simpler times, so he focuses hard on magic to avoid that rush of nostalgia. 

He rushes through Thunder, hardly grasping the concept, before rushing headfirst into advanced lightning magic. Thoron proves more difficult, and the physical strain leaves a bolt shaped scar down the length of his right forearm, a permanent testament to his impatience.

Rodrigue does little to ease his grief. In fact, he spews so much nonsense about dying a noble death that Felix comes to avoid him at all costs. 

He attempts to steel himself in the face of Dimitri, who had lost so much more than he, but his efforts are in vain. Dimitri recovers at a startling pace, especially when his Duscurian retainer arrives. 

Felix is left to wallow in shame, wondering why his own resolve is so weak. Ingrid, whose mourning had been on par with his, also recuperates quickly, leaving Felix to believe his own suffering to be unnecessary. _I’m weak._

To overcome that weakness, he faces his own fear of returning to normalcy.

When he picks up a sword again for the first time, it feels natural. He’d missed it. Black magic is heavy on both the spirit and the body; the blade, however, is light and agile, easily controlled, and predictable. Though memories of Glenn flood his mind when he practices, the recollections are never sour. They spur him forward. They remind him that his elder brother would want him to be happy and prosperous, and that he would be proud to see him improve.

He leaves magic behind after a while, once he feels completely comfortable with physical weapons again, and it feels right. The blade welcomes his touch. He doesn’t feel any need or desire to replace Glenn; training once again becomes something he can enjoy, and not a means to an end.

A year passes. Felix watches the cascading leaves in autumn, the snowfall in winter, and the fresh bloom of flowers in spring through reinvigorated eyes. Nothing has changed—nothing but his outlook—yet everything feels different. He has gained a seasoned appreciation for life, a gratefulness that perhaps would not have emerged without facing loss.

Glenn may be gone, but Felix is still alive. Grieving forever will benefit no one, and so he tucks his sadness into the cracks and crevices that line his heart. The tears that he once shed on every whim are reserved. He changes; he becomes stronger in the face of misfortune. 

It’s in the late summer, just over a year after Glenn’s passing, that Rodrigue interrupts one of Felix’s heated sparring sessions to inform him that they would depart immediately for Gautier territory. He provides no further information, even when Felix asks bluntly, and his secrecy is frightening.

Felix cannot stop his mind from wandering to negative conclusions as he and his father mount Rodrigue’s steed and set off, northbound. His blood runs cold through his veins when he realizes that Sylvain might have gotten hurt…or worse.

_No,_ his subconscious snaps as the stallion gallops through empty plains. _I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t lose Sylvain. I can’t—_

He tightens his grip around Rodrigue’s waist, and, in response, his father spurs the horse along faster. The ride to Gautier is normally an entire day’s worth of casual horseback travel. At this rate, they might arrive before nightfall. Felix hopes they do. He isn’t sure if he can manage his relentless thoughts for more than a few hours. 

Felix counts clouds to ease his anxiety. This isn’t a positive anticipation, like what he had felt as a boy on the nights before Glenn was scheduled to come home. This is bloodcurdling and frightening. This makes him huddle against his father as he did when he was still plagued with nightmares. His fingers clench, white-knuckled, around his father’s coat. 

He has never been so debilitatingly afraid.

Before he had faced the prospect of death head-on, he had never feared for the lives of others. It was a given that if someone left, they would return. Now, even a trip to the market has him quaking, fearing for the safety of his loved ones. 

He hates fear and uncertainty and powerlessness. That is why he trains so rigorously that his palms blister and bleed. That is why he wears the scar of Thoron proudly.

Night has fallen by the time they pull into the Gautier stable, and Felix flings himself from his father’s horse before the animal has come to a halt. If Rodrigue will not tell him anything, he will find out of his own accord. 

Sylvain is in his room, lying with his back facing the door, when Felix enters. His breath hitches as he realizes that his friend may very well be ill and that his sudden appearance would only be a hindrance, but he must be sure. Drawing near, he places a hand gently against Sylvain’s side.

He turns slowly to face Felix, eyes slightly puffy and face pale, and Felix is unsure of his condition. He plants the back of his hand against the redhead’s forehead, feeling for unusual warmth, but senses nothing; meeting foreheads also offers no insight. “Are you sick?” he whispers, concern masked with detachment. 

“Sick?” Sylvain repeats slowly, as if tasting the word. “No. Why are you here? Did something happen?”

Felix exhales sharply. Sylvain is hiding something—of that, he’s sure. But he can’t decipher what it is; what those reddened eyes and swollen lips mean. 

Then, as swift as the strike of an arrow, realization hits. “Were you crying?”

He’d never seen Sylvain cry. Sylvain is older and had always insisted that crying was for weaklings, so Felix had never seen even a stray tear escape the corner of his eye. However, it’s unmistakable: Sylvain has been weeping and has only recently collected himself.

“So, you haven’t heard anything,” Sylvain mumbles, glancing at the floor. He snorts, making light of the situation, before stating bluntly, “Miklan is gone. My father…disinherited him. Because of me.”

Felix blinks once, then twice, attempting to understand. “Because of you?” he repeats, and Sylvain rises to a seated position on his mattress. “Explain.”

“You’re too young to understand, Felix.” 

Resisting the urge to slap him, Felix counters. “I am not.” Then, softly, “I want to help you. The way you helped me when I lost my brother. Let me help you.”

Sylvain sighs and glances at the floorboards, and Felix knows he has struck a chord. “I have a Crest and he doesn’t. I have a Crest, so I get to stay, and I get to replace him. He never liked me, and I was okay with that, but hearing him say I should’ve never been born…that kind of hurt, you know?”

Felix had heard horror stories of Crest breeding from Rodrigue, but, in his naivete, he hadn’t realized that Sylvain was a product of the malpractice. 

“He…he threatened to kill me before he left,” Sylvain continues gradually, as though contemplating whether or not to carry on. “I can’t even blame him. I feel like I would do the same, if I was in his position. It isn’t fair. He doesn’t deserve this.”

Felix’s fists clench at his sides and he isn’t sure what to say. Consolation has never been a strong suit of his. 

“And you know what’s worse?” Sylvain continues, planting his face in his palms and shaking his head. “My own father thinks of me as nothing but a stud now. My own dad!” He laughs, but the sound is hollow and forced. “He started sending out marriage proposals for me. You know who he sent one to? House Galatea. To _Ingrid._ That’s just…just wrong.”

Words still do not come to Felix. Sylvain’s type of suffering is incomparable to his own; he isn’t grieving. He’s so angry that his fingers tremble around their hold on his own bangs. His jaw is clenched to the point that it must hurt. Felix has never experienced this type of rage on his friend’s features before.

“I didn’t ask to be born like this,” he rambles, voice shaky. “I didn’t ask to have a damned Crest. I don’t want to go through all of this. I don’t want my brother to hate me. I don’t want to marry some snobby rich girl and have her Crest babies. I don’t want people to look at me and think ‘Wow, he has a Crest!’ I’m more than that, Felix. I’m more than a walking, talking Crest.”

“You are,” Felix whispers after finding his voice. He kneels so that his eyes are level with Sylvain’s. “You’re more than a Crest.”

“Yeah? Tell that to my father. Tell that to my brother, and to all the families that got my dad’s stupid proposal.” He glances up and his tear-rimmed eyes meet Felix’s. “I’m just some stupid trophy. All my future wife is gonna care about is my Crest, and she’s gonna milk me dry until we have a kid with one, too.”

Again, Felix is at a loss for words. He is powerless; he cannot rewrite the rules that House Gautier throughout history. He can only sit and watch as his friend suffers the consequences of those regulations.

“It’s just a vicious cycle. My father went through it, now I have to, and one day my own kids will, too. I’ll have to get rid of my own kids. I don’t want to do that. I don’t think I _could_ do that, ever.”

He’s started rocking back and forth, mumbling growing incoherent with each passing word, and Felix still cannot think of anything that might comfort him. 

_What would Glenn do?_

Felix thinks back to when he was feeling hopeless. The way Glenn would console him was—

Felix cups his hands around Sylvain’s cheeks and stares into his eyes, waiting for his breath to even out. “Stop crying,” he says, trying to mimic his brother’s warm tone from their childhood, but his own tongue is too sharp. “I’m here.” 

And before he can realize that his brother’s method of consolation is perhaps a bit too intimate, he pulls Sylvain’s face close and kisses the moisture off of his eyelashes.

They stay that way for a moment, Felix planting gentle pecks against Sylvain’s closed eyes, and Felix is relieved to feel his friend’s breathing steady beneath his touch. His skin is soft; his tears, salty.

Felix’s hands stray from the sides of Sylvain’s face until his fingers have laced through his red hair. His lips, too, drift to press carefully against moist cheeks. 

From there, he follows the flow of Sylvain’s stray tears, dappling his lips against the skin of Sylvain’s face; down his cheekbones to his jawline to his point of his chin, then up to his mouth. Instinctively, he presses a delicate kiss to Sylvain’s humid upper lip.

“Better?” Felix says quietly once he has deemed the job complete. 

Sylvain is eyeing him incredulously, as though he’s sprouted a third eye. “Did…did you just kiss me?”

“No…?” and then he realizes, and a burst of warmth erupts on his cheeks. “No,” he says again, more firmly. 

“You just kissed me,” Sylvain repeats, a teasing smile spreading across his face, replacing his bleak frown. “Felix, you sly animal—”

“Shut up,” he snaps, but he can feel his face flush and his lips turn up slightly at the sight of his rejuvenated friend. Sylvain is feeling better; even though Felix feels a smidge embarrassed, he’s relieved that he was able to lighten the mood.

* * *

Rodrigue and Felix stay at the Gautier estate for a few days. Margrave Gautier, after having witnessed Miklan’s threats toward his prized Crest-bearing son, fears an attack against the new heir, and so he enlists Rodrigue’s help.

In the meantime, the boys spend their own time leisurely. Felix is glad to have someone to spar with other than Dimitri and Dedue—they’re adept fighters, but he memorized their respective styles months ago. Sylvain rarely sparred with him throughout their childhood, always opting to flirt with the training dummies instead, so his movements are unexpected and fresh.

Where Felix expects a jab, Sylvain will swing; where a slash is predicted, a blunt blow will land. Instead of growing frustrated, Felix appreciates the chance to practice his forecasting.

Even so, Sylvain will always let Felix win. It’s a new development; when wrestling as children, Sylvain was far too arrogant to yield first. Felix expected Sylvain’s habits to transfer to adulthood. 

But Felix knows his motive.

“Oh, damn,” Sylvain says after a heated match, dropping his lance to the floor to rub at where Felix’s sword struck his arm. “Looks like you win again, Felix. You’re such a good fighter.” Then, brows knitting and bottom lip quivering dramatically, “That hurt. You should _comfort_ me.”

In other words, he wants to be kissed.

And Felix obliges. There’s something inherently wrong about it, about running his lips over Sylvain’s body where someone might stumble upon them in the act, but he likes the heat that pools in his chest as a result of the action. 

Felix has never felt such a sensation before. Only with Sylvain. Only when his lips touch Sylvain’s balmy skin. Only when they stand in such close proximity that Felix can count the specks dotting his irises. 

He likes the feeling, but he doesn’t want to admit it. He excuses his willful ignorance by claiming it as a product of his youth, but, in truth, he’s afraid to pick apart his emotions and unravel what they truly mean.

He may be but a fifteen-year-old, but Felix has heard more than enough from Glenn and Ingrid about blooming feelings to understand the concept of love. Does this desire for physical intimacy constitute to attraction, or is this a simple case of teenage lust?

Does he…love Sylvain?

_No. No fucking way._ Felix shakes his head absentmindedly before resuming his trail of dry kisses up Sylvain’s forearm. _There’s no fucking way._

More importantly, Sylvain is seventeen and much more aware of himself and his emotions when compared to Felix. Allowing his younger friend to kiss the length of his arm is a tad manipulative, and Felix nips at his fair skin as punishment.

Sylvain pulls his arm away and rubs at the spot with a pout. “Hey, Felix, can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

He clicks his tongue and continues. “What would you do if Miklan really tried to kill me one day?”

“I’d kill him first,” comes the instant reply. Felix doesn’t have to think about it for even a second; if Sylvain’s life was threatened by anyone, even Rodrigue, he wouldn’t falter.

And that’s love. He can’t deny it.

He and Sylvain share water from a leather flask, then lean against a wall to catch their breath. They hadn’t trained much—Felix is panting due to slight arousal more than anything else, so he can’t fathom why Sylvain’s breath is so unsteady.

“Hey, Felix. I know I don’t really have any right to say this, but I feel like I can tell you things that I wouldn’t say to anyone else.” He pauses, running his fingers idly over the textured flask. “It’s different—I know I can’t compare to you at all. I know this is stupid—you’re gonna tell me it’s stupid, I can already tell.”

“Just say it,” Felix snaps.

“We both lost our brothers,” he murmurs, voice making his insecurity apparent. “We kind of…share a pain. I know, it’s different, but I feel like I can understand now. I can understand why you were so broken that day. I mean, Miklan is still alive, and I still shed a few tears—"

“More than a few.”

“A bunch of tears,” Sylvain corrects himself. “I know, I’m stupid. I just thought maybe we could turn this pain into a bonding moment.”

Felix thinks it over. Glenn’s death still weighs heavy on his mind—it likely always will—but he’s worked hard to make the memory something bittersweet as opposed to an agonizing recollection. Sylvain’s situation is different, but they could both benefit from brightening their outlook. “Okay,” he mutters, taking the flask from Sylvain’s grasp for an extra sip. 

“You remember that promise we made?” Sylvain says, and they both take a seat in the dirt of the training ground. “That one where we said we’d die together.”

“Obviously.”

“We’ll do it. I know we will. But we’re gonna live long, fulfilling lives first. For our brothers.” 

Felix glances at the sky above, the streaks of sunset reigniting his passion, and he smiles wistfully. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an unplanned chapter. I wanted to show that Sylvain and Felix are still maturing, still hurting, and still finding their way. Next chapter hits Garreg Mach, though! 
> 
> Sidenote—I'm so grateful for all of the love this fic is getting! You're all so ridiculously sweet, bless. I hope I can meet your expectations throughout our little journey. 
> 
> Again, feel free to leave a comment if you so desire, and thank you for taking the time to read my little drabble!


	3. Squabbling

When Felix hits courting age, time spirals out of his feeble grasp. Responsibility is suddenly thrust upon his shoulders; the duties that were once Glenn’s are now his own as the heir to House Fraldarius. He’s forced into etiquette classes and riding lessons, and he must attend tactics meetings whenever the opportunity arises.

He stops doing the things he loves and forcibly becomes a proper gentleman, but he hates the position he’s been thrust into. His tongue grows sharper by the day and the face that was once graced with a sincere, childlike innocence is now permanently marked with a scowl. 

There is no longer any time to spar, meet with friends, or grieve. Every waking moment of every day is spent preparing for adulthood and, despite how taxing the prospect is, Felix is glad to have a distraction. 

After leaving House Gautier, he’d been consumed with thoughts of Sylvain. His touch, his voice, his scent—Felix couldn’t get a full night’s worth of sleep without imagining some convoluted erotic fantasy involving them both. 

Distance is exactly what he needs. Not what he wants, but an unpleasant necessity.

A year passes. Felix is sent off as a squire to aid in the suppression of a rebellion alongside Dimitri and there he witnesses brutality for the first time. He learns to kill. His hands tremble the first time they’re coated in a stranger’s blood.

Another year passes. Count Galatea and Ingrid arrive to discuss a marriage proposal and Rodrigue is fairly interested. Ingrid and Felix do not wish to be wed, though, and their fathers do not press the subject. When they stay for a few days, Ingrid stays in Felix’s room as she usually does, and they talk of betrothal and dowries. 

They’re adults now; to speak of such uncomfortable topics is commonplace and, although Felix loathes it all, he entertains Ingrid as she vents.

The night before she leaves, she tells him she loves him. “But not in the way our fathers want us to,” she says, knees tucked up against her chest. “Maybe I just love the idea of you. You remind me of him so much, after all.” She pauses, eyes distant and clouded with emotion. “Felix, can I tell you something?”

“You’ve done nothing but tell me things all week. Why stop now?”

“I’m afraid,” she continues with a weak laugh, resting her cheek on her knees. Their eyes meet and, though she has yet to explain why, Felix is sure he understands. “My father is going to force me into marriage for money, and I’m going to follow his instructions because that is what is expected of me. Will I…ever love again? Will I die having only known love as a teenager who could never appreciate it?”

Felix lacks an answer to her query, so he ponders for a moment. What a cruel life the nobility lead, to be trapped behind bars of money and prestige and Crests. 

He wonders sometimes if life would be better if they had all been born commoners. Glenn would not have had the connections to become a knight and he would not have died in vain. Sylvain would not be plagued by the guilt of possessing a Crest; Miklan would not have been disowned for lack of one. Ingrid would not need to worry about reeling in a sizable dowry. 

Yet here they are, bearing burdens that children their age should never have to worry about. They have no say in most matters regarding their own lives. They live to present an image to those in a class below themselves, and to pass along traditions that they themselves grew up hating. 

“What do you think?” he asks. “Do you think it would have been better if you never experienced love?”

She doesn’t expect the question, and so she blinks thoughtfully for a moment. “I…I do not. It hurts now, of course, but having Glenn by my side is something I never want to forget. We may have been betrothed, but we were far closer than that. I do not usually pray, but I would give thanks every night as a young girl for sending him to me.” 

They pause and a long silence fills the room. Felix, too, has pondered the idea of loss and inexperience many a time, but hearing Ingrid’s views helps him settle his own opinions.

“What of you?” she asks quietly. “Do you think it would have been better if you never had a brother?”

“Of course not,” he snaps. Glenn was the most important person in his life for so many years that just the insinuation stings. He taught Felix many things and the bond they shared was incomparable. Glenn’s death was the most painful thing he experienced, but it brought about a season of growth that shaped him into the person he is now. The pain was crucial.

“I’m glad you did not…distance yourself after his death,” Ingrid says after a beat. “I know I did for a time. I was so devastated that I was afraid to form bonds again. I thought that if I got too close to someone and I lost them, I would never be able to recover again.”

“What changed that?”

She smiles a bit, small and inconsequential. “I got lonely. I suppose I must have asked myself the same question you asked me just now, and I answered the same way I answered you. I would much rather experience highs and lows in this life than never feel. You, too. I hope you feel love at least once before being forced into marriage.”

Felix’s mind inadvertently wanders to Sylvain and he hates himself for it. “I never said I want to love,” he retorts, but Ingrid returns a knowing smile.

When she leaves the following morning, Felix cannot help but replay their conversation in his head over and over. 

To love and lose is better than to never have loved at all. 

A third year passes, and Felix takes that lesson with him to Garreg Mach. Garreg Mach Monastery, where he meets far more people than he is initially comfortable with, and where he makes friends. He’s a touch proud of himself for branching out—though he doesn’t go very far or connect personally with very many students. Most know his name; he supposes that is all they really need to know.

He is reunited with Sylvain and Ingrid once more, and the former has changed beyond recognition. What was once a minimal flirtatious jest here and there has become all-out banter, and Felix swears he sees him guide a different girl to his room every night. 

At first, he believes his contempt to be nothing more than childish jealousy. Felix has never slept with anyone; seeing another man get so much solicitation must rile him up, right? But, after attempting to woo a female at the training grounds to experience it himself, he realizes that he has misunderstood himself. What he feels is not jealousy.

It's pity.

Felix has known Sylvain for as long as he can remember, and he prides himself on being able to read his friend’s expressions, emotions, and body language. When he sees Sylvain dragging a woman to his room, Sylvain’s face isn’t marked by lust or boredom or even curiosity. 

There’s…nothing. He doesn’t feel a thing about these women that he deliberately woos. 

And, though he cannot yet pinpoint Sylvain’s exact intentions, Felix knows the change must have been spurred by the incident with Miklan. There’s something carnal about Sylvain’s desire to embrace another person, no matter who it might be, and Felix can only attribute it to the lack of affection his friend experienced growing up. 

Did Margrave Gautier ever show Sylvain any love? Miklan surely didn’t. That means the only time he ever experienced anything akin to tenderness was when he would spend time with his friends. Meaning not very often. 

Sylvain is compensating for years of neglect by bedding every woman he possibly can.

Felix cannot get that thought out of his head no matter how hard he tries, and it distracts him during every waking moment of every day. He unintentionally causes quite a bit of trouble due to his inattentiveness and, after a particularly close mishap in Zanado, his house leader confronts him in the knight’s hall.

“Ah, the boar,” he sighs. Dimitri had moved out of the Fraldarius estate after the suppression effort two years prior, when Felix expressed such distaste toward his actions that Rodrigue was afraid he would slay the crown prince during his sleep. “What have I done now?”

“You endangered yourself during our excursion in Zanado,” Dimitri replies, as calm as ever, “and that, in turn, endangered our classmates. You must know that putting others in danger is simply unforgivable.” After a beat, “You, of all people, know that best.”

“And you know that you have no right to criticize me,” Felix snaps. 

“I…do not. You are as right as ever, Felix.”

They stand in silence for a moment and, with little better to do, Felix begins to toy with a training sword. In return, Dimitri lifts his own weapon. “You wish to spar, boar?” Felix asks, interest piqued.

He knows Dimitri will use this opportunity to continue lecturing him but, for whatever reason, they battle anyway. “What has you so distracted, Felix?” Dimitri asks, lunging. The tip of his weapon whirs past Felix’s ear and, not having expected him to aim for his head, Felix’s eyes go wide. “I know you well enough to know something is plaguing your thoughts.”

“None of your business,” Felix retorts, and lashes at Dimitri’s side. 

The crown prince is skilled enough to parry the blow before countering with a slice that cuts air. Felix hardly manages to block without losing his grip on his blade. “It is my business. If you were killed on the battlefield—”

“It would be my own fault.” Felix steps back to regain his composure. The crown prince may be slower, but his jabs carry inexplicable power behind them. Even with a training weapon, he could impale Felix. Easily.

“Is it truly so difficult to believe I want what is best for you?”

“Yes.” Felix swings just as Dimitri does and, when their weapons collide, both break. The tremor that shakes Felix’s hand is enough for him to jump back in agony and drop the wooden blade. “You’re a damn boar. Relentless and insufferable. I’m not foolish enough to believe you care about anyone but yourself.”

Dimitri’s poised expression falters for a moment before he takes Felix’s throbbing hand into his own and drags him outside. “Worry not, we are only going to the infirmary. I must prove to you that I care for your wellbeing.”

“You don’t need to prove anything, you imbecile,” Felix snaps, but his tone wavers as they walk through the reception hall. Sylvain is there; their eyes meet for a heartbeat, and then it’s as though nothing happened. 

But something did happen, and Dimitri is sure to bring it up when they reach the stairwell. “You flinched.”

“What?”

“You flinched when you saw Sylvain. Did something happen between you two?” He pauses and, when Felix doesn’t respond right away, he jumps to a conclusion. “You two have been awfully distant as of late. That must be what is on your mind.”

“It is _not,_” Felix snaps, but his voice lacks the bite that it requires to sound sincere. 

“And I am right,” Dimitri says, and Felix wants to slap the smile off of his face. He allows Manuela to take Felix into her care and promises to return. He won’t. Felix knows exactly what he intends to do.

_This motherfucker._

Sylvain bursts in minutes later, breathing jagged and hair ruffled. “Holy shit, Felix,” he sputters, trying to both catch his breath and lean seductively against the doorframe in Manuela’s presence. “Dimitri said you broke your hand. I always knew you trained a little too hard for your own good.”

“He lied,” Felix replies, glaring daggers.

Manuela, sensing the tension in the room, chuckles to herself. “It’s little more than a bruise,” she croons, caressing Felix’s palm. “You should be fine, but you might want to rest up a bit. Feel free to stay here for as long as you need.” Sporting a grin, she saunters off.

_Fuck._

It’s just Sylvain and Felix in the room and, after having been separated for three years, Felix realizes he’s missed the redhead. He’s missed their conversations and their connection and, somewhere deep down, he’s missed their intimacy. He bites his lip and stares at his palm.

“Felix,” Sylvain croons, drawing near. “How’ve you been? You’ve been avoiding me since we got here, haven’t you? Did I do something wrong?”

Felix scowls. He’s done everything wrong. Coming up here was wrong. Sitting beside him, so close that their shoulders brush every time Sylvain moves, is wrong. “Go away,” he snaps before he can help himself. “I haven’t been ignoring you. I’ve had enough of you.”

“Ouch,” Sylvain says playfully, but Felix can tell his words pluck a heartstring. “Tell me how you really feel, huh?”

They sit like that for a moment, silence blaring, until Sylvain takes Felix’s sore hand into his own and examines it thoroughly. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you’re okay. Manuela might be hot, but that doesn’t mean she does her job right.”

Felix sighs, angry at himself for enjoying the feel of Sylvain’s skin against his own. “You’re absolutely insufferable.”

“Oh?” Sylvain flashes him a smile that could put the sun to shame and runs his thumb over Felix’s palm. “Hey, should I comfort you?” Before Felix can answer, Sylvain lifts his palm to his lips.

His touch is gentle, slightly moist, and ever so caring. It feels so good that Felix automatically knows it to be bad. 

He pulls his hand away as though he’s been burned. “What the fuck?” he snaps, words sharp. “What the hell is your problem?”

Sylvain looks genuinely confused, and he blinks a few times before replying. “I…. That’s what you used to do for me, remember? I mean, it was only, like, twice, but—”

“But we were young, and I was stupid, and it meant nothing,” Felix snaps. 

He immediately regrets his words.

“It meant nothing?” Sylvain whispers, eyes conveying honest pain while his face attempts to appear uncaring. “Hah, I guess I should have known.”

Felix, brooding, stares at him for a moment. “Known what?”

“That you could never feel anything toward anyone, ever. I guess I was stupid, too, to think you kissing me really meant anything.”

“Sylvain—” He pauses, piecing together his thoughts, but anger gets the best of him. “You have no right to say anything when you’re out fucking a different woman every night.”

Sylvain bristles at this and stands, glaring down at Felix. “Don’t—You don’t know anything. Don’t bring up things you don’t understand. And don’t assume I don’t feel anything toward those women. You don’t know anything at all.” He raises a hand as if to swing, and Felix closes his eyes to allow a blow to land. 

None comes.

“I hope your hand gets better,” is the final thing Sylvain says before stepping out, and Felix has a terrible feeling that he’s just ruined a lifelong friendship.

* * *

“Please, leave him alone,” Ingrid says, brows furrowed with worry. Her hand rests delicately against Felix’s sleeve and, though he desperately wants to make amends, he acquiesces. His mind is still foggy, and, in this state, he may very well make things worse. 

“Has he said anything?”

Ingrid bites her lip in thought. “I do not believe so. Nothing of value. This has been a trying time for him. I've even asked the professor to keep her distance.”

“The professor?” Felix is thoroughly confused at this. “It has nothing to do with her.”

Ingrid blinks a few times. “Are…are we talking about the same thing, Felix?”

“Our argument. We had a fight.”

“Felix….” She shakes her head a few times and lifts a hand to her cheek. “Felix, our class…. We are being deployed to vanquish Miklan this month.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final character-building chapter I _swear._
> 
> Again, thank you all for all the support! This is my first time writing anything like this so it's great to know I'm doing it right! I literally heart you all.


	4. The Black Beast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a friendly reminder that this fic will contain **heavy spoilers for the Blue Lions route** and likely some soft spoilers for other routes.
> 
> **Canon divergence** is a thing in this story, too, so expect events to be out of order or have outcomes that vary from canon.
> 
> Also, fair warning that the next chapter will be delayed by about a day. Sorry!

Sylvain had, quite literally, begged Byleth for the opportunity to speak to his brother alone. Prostrated on the floor, face ducked so that his forehead just about grazed the earth, his professor had agreed under one condition.

“We will follow close behind,” she had demanded, face stern. “I will not take no for an answer.”

And Sylvain had agreed.

Felix cannot fathom why he would plead to speak to the man that tormented him throughout his childhood. Miklan had treated him terribly, even going so far as to threaten to take his life at instances, yet Sylvain still believes he might be able to repair their relationship. To retrieve what was stolen without ending Miklan’s life.

It is an impossibility that could prove fatal. Miklan has never been one to use words, and he has never liked Sylvain. Especially now, while wielding the Lance of Ruin, one wrong step, one miscalculated word, could end with a slash through the jugular. 

Felix bites at his lip until it bleeds, nerves ever apparent, as the Blue Lions wait outside of Miklan’s lair. They had cleared the area prior to allowing Sylvain inside, but something about sending him alone still makes Felix’s stomach churn. 

Miklan does not play fair. Ever. He must have some trick up his sleeve, some trump card that he will pull when they least expect it.

His suspicions are proven when, from within, an ear-splitting roar causes the ground to shake. A shiver makes its way up the length of Felix’s spine and, after only a moment of coherence, he darts within in search of his friend, Blue Lions hot on his trail.

Even from such a distance, Felix can make out the blackened silhouette of an enormous beast, jaws agape, tongue wagging heartily. Miklan and the Lance of Ruin have disappeared, and Sylvain stands his ground, holding his own weapon defensively, as though he might be able to shield himself from a hit. 

Thoughtlessly, ignoring the sting of the scar along his right arm, Felix summons Thoron to his fingertips. If he could distract the creature for even a moment—

Byleth stills him with the tap of a finger against his shoulder and steps forward in his stead, sword drawn and at the ready for an onslaught. Felix can only place his faith in the professor as Thoron’s might dissipates from his hands. 

With little else to occupy his mind, Felix dashes toward Sylvain, who stands with his knees knocking before the demon. Sylvain hears him approach and extends a hand, which slams roughly against Felix’s abdomen. “Don’t! Don’t do anything!” Desperation tinges his tone and his eyes are wide. “That thing—it’s Miklan.”

The monster lunges, far too large and unwieldy to hit its target, and the boys end up a heap on the stone floor. “What the fuck are you talking about, Sylvain?” Felix snaps, hooking their arms together to drag him off. “That isn’t Miklan—”

“It is! It’s—the Lance—he—"

They barely dodge another attack and Sylvain flinches visibly when Byleth counters, heavily wounding the creature. 

Felix slaps his hands onto Sylvain’s face, redirecting his line of sight so that they’re focusing on one another, and stares determinedly at him. “Sylvain, we’re getting out of here.”

“No,” the redhead snaps, face pale and sickly. “No, I’m not—I won’t let Miklan die like this.” He turns just in time to see Byleth land another strong blow to the demon, resulting in a festering gash. “Stop her, Felix! Make her stop!”

“Sylvain—”

“Stop! Stop, that’s Miklan!”

Felix bites his lip again, and blood resurges upon his tongue. “Sylvain,” he repeats, slowly and forcefully. He hasn’t the heart to tell him, though, that Byleth is out for blood. That she would not rest until the beast has been slain and its head has been delivered to Rhea on a platter. 

“Felix,” Sylvain replies, and he tucks his face into Felix’s chest just as Byleth delivers the final blow. Felix covers his ears, futile in light of the sound the black beast makes as it writhes.

The demon dissipates into thin air and where the creature had stood lies a fallen Miklan, so horrifically mutilated that his entrails are visible in the gloom, Lance of Ruin grasped in his bloodied and broken fingers. His eyes are wide yet lifeless, mouth open as though to speak. The Lance trembles in anticipation in his open palm, as if relishing in the thrill of the kill.

The professor’s face contorts into a pained expression for just a fleeting moment before she turns, ushering the group away from the scene.

It is too late, though. They’ve seen all that they need to know.

Miklan is dead. The Lance of Ruin’s bright red Crest stone is more vibrant than ever.

* * *

Whatever had happened between the time Sylvain stepped into Miklan’s lair and the moment the beast consumed his brother is an enigma that he refuses to clarify. He insists that Byleth give him the Lance and, once it is in his possession, he locks himself in his room, only to emerge during mealtimes.

Felix can hardly control his temper during this time, and his arm breaks more than a few training swords. He cannot understand why he’s angry but, damnit, he is.

“At least try to talk to him,” Ingrid offers during an etiquette seminar, brows drawn together and tea hovering just below her lips. “He…has not been himself lately. I never believed Miklan’s death would affect him so deeply.”

Of course Miklan’s death is devastating to Sylvain. Sylvain spent the majority of his young life learning to love his older brother for the person he was, even if it meant dealing with constant verbal abuse. 

Ingrid, too, knows little of Sylvain. Felix is beginning to believe that he may very well be the only person in the monastery who knows him for who he is inside, and not solely the person he projects. “He cares more than he lets on,” is all Felix responds.

“That is exactly why I believe you should be the one to confront him. You know him better than I do. You are both closer,” she says firmly, masking her frustration by taking a bite of a tea sandwich. She’ll have points docked for the action—it is too early in the session to eat, and one should never take a sandwich midway through conversation—but she doesn’t seem to care, stuffing her face with crust. “I have tried to speak with him; he refuses to open the door for me, and he ignores me during meals.”

Felix has yet to approach Sylvain’s room. Its tall double doors, dark and imposing, deter him from his goal each time his knuckles make to rap gently against their surface. “I can’t,” he murmurs into his teacup. There’s a deep-rooted fear that he’ll lose his temper and say something foolish again and, in his current state, Sylvain will not be so forgiving.

“Try,” Ingrid prods, extending her fingers across the table to caress his. He pulls away and she restrains a laugh. “I assure you, he would be touched if you would simply put in some effort.”

Whether or not it happens because of Ingrid’s words, Felix refuses to admit, but he finds himself standing outside of Sylvain’s room later in the evening, just as the sun intends to dip beneath the horizon. He’s been standing stark still for a time now, fist hovering over the door, uncertain. 

He knows he desires to make amends and bring Sylvain a bit of respite, but is now an appropriate time? Is Sylvain busy? Angry? Does he wish to be left alone? Felix makes excuse after excuse, as if trying to deter himself, but his knuckles meet the door without his consent.

Felix holds his breath.

“Go away, Ingrid,” Sylvain calls from within, voice worn as raspy as though he’d been crying. The sound causes Felix’s chest to tighten. “I’ve told you already, I’m fine.”

Felix knocks again.

“Ingrid—”

Again.

“Stop—”

Again.

After a heavy shuffle from within, the door swings open and Sylvain immediately snaps, “Ingrid, knock it the hell—” His voice catches in his throat as he realizes that it is, in fact, not Ingrid who has been pestering him. “O-Oh, Felix. I didn’t expect you.” 

They both hesitate, eyes drifting to the floorboards, and Felix is the first to attempt to break the tension. “Let me in.” After a brief reconsideration, “Or…can I come in?”

Sylvain pauses, palm flat against the open door as if blocking Felix’s path. “Okay,” he sighs, voice weaker than it had been previously, and Felix enters mindfully. 

Felix takes a seat on Sylvain’s bed, making himself comfortable and preparing for Sylvain to step onto his soapbox, but the room remains silent and Sylvain makes no move to sit by his side. “How are you feeling?” Felix asks, voice quivering beneath his anxiety. The question could potentially break the peace.

Sylvain gives a weak smile, crossing his arms and leaning against his desk. He stares at the flickering flame of his oil lamp, organizing his thoughts, before stating, “Not great.”

“Clarify.” Shaking his head and cursing under his breath, Felix repeats more gently, “Explain…please.”

“What’s there to explain?” Sylvain says, voice conveying more misery than frustration. “Miklan is dead, I have the stupid Lance,” he gestures toward where it leans against his bedframe precariously, “and I’m supposed to pretend I’m okay because Miklan’s death was ordered by the Church. I’m supposed to sit here and say ‘yeah, the goddess ordained it’ and move on like nothing happened.”

Felix clenches his fists at his sides, unsure of what to say, but he forces words to escape his lips. “It’s okay to feel sad,” he says, echoing words that Sylvain once told him. “You lost someone important to you. It’s natural to feel sad and…and you shouldn’t let the Church tell you how to feel.”

Sylvain stares at him for a moment, eyes half-lidded, and Felix nearly believes he’s said something awful or misinformed. However, when Sylvain lunges forward and wraps him in a tight hug, the thoughts drift away. “Gods, damnit, Felix, you’re right. You’re right about everything. You’re always right.” He pauses, voice muffled in Felix’s shirt, “I’m sorry.”

He’s started to tear up at this point—Felix can feel the humidity through his shirt—and Felix is entirely unsure of what he’s saying.

“You’re sorry?” Felix repeats, dumbfounded. “For what?”

“For being stupid,” he mutters, taking the hem of Felix’s shirt into his hand to wipe his nose. Felix rips it from his grasp and he chuckles, the first genuine sound he’s emitted in weeks. “You remember what you told me in the infirmary? About me being a heartless skirt-chaser?”

“I didn’t say—”

“You were right. I just…it felt good and I was an asshole.” He glances up at Felix, face soft, as though admitting his faults has relieved some burden. “It kinda hit me after Miklan was gone. I never had anything like what you had with Glenn and I guess I was jealous of that. I wanted someone to care about me. Someone to love me.” 

There’s a long pause in which Felix sighs and tries to piece together what he should say. “People do love you.”

“No, they don’t. They love the idea of me. They love my Crest and my family name and the way I’m willing to warm their bed. Nobody knows me for who I am except maybe you.”

Felix clenches his jaw slightly, then purses his lips. “I’m sorry, too,” he says, voice strained. He isn’t used to apologizing, especially not in so genuine a tone, and it’s obvious. “I shouldn’t have said all of that, even if it’s true. I just lost my temper.”

“I said worse,” Sylvain admits, and his voice little more than a vibration against Felix’s chest. “I said you were a heartless bastard—er, that’s pretty much what I was thinking, at least. But you’re not. I hate to say it, but you’re probably more capable of getting close to people than I am.”

“How so?”

“You’re genuine. You take a long time to warm up to people, but, once you do, you’re the biggest sweetheart.” Sylvain tugs him closer, crushing the wind from his lungs. “I love you.”

Felix’s heart skips a beat and, with Sylvain’s ear pressed so close, he’s sure he can hear. “Shut up,” he growls, voice lacking punch. 

“I’m serious,” Sylvain says, digging his face deeper into Felix’s uniform, and Felix can feel his lips move through the fabric when he next speaks. “Don’t worry, I won’t do anything. I just…I took the time to reflect a little and I guess I realized that I kept sleeping with a bunch of people because I was looking for someone who treated me the way you do. Honest to a fault, not afraid to tell it to me straight even if it hurts me.”

“Sylvain, stop.”

“But I’m not kidding. If you were a girl, I’d have made a move years ago.”

Felix’s heart drops. “Insatiable, as always,” he mutters, gently pushing Sylvain from him, but the redhead grabs his hand in his own.

“Let me finish,” he murmurs. “If you were a girl, I would’ve been an idiot and hooked up with you a long time ago. Just because of your looks or something. Something shallow, because I’m a superficial dumbass. But you’re not a girl, so I actually took the time to get to know you and fall for you as a _person,_ not as a body.” 

“Gods, damnit, shut up, Sylvain.” Felix is flushed up to his ears at this point and he can easily feel the heat. “I’m here to comfort you, not listen to your corny ass confession.”

“_Comfort me?_” Sylvain repeats, sly smile curling the edges of his lips. “Then comfort me, Felix.” 

This is not what Felix had in mind in the slightest, and it’s apparent when Sylvain tugs his face down to meet his own. 

Their lips crash, Felix’s entirely unprepared, and Sylvain is already open-mouthed, warm tongue prodding. Felix refuses, tense as always, and pushes away, breathing heavy.

As he wipes the moisture from his lips, Sylvain moves away, eyes wide. “Shit. Fuck, Felix, I’m sorry. I’m doing the same thing I always do, aren’t I? Fuck. Don’t be mad—”

Felix blinks a few times, allowing what had just happened to sink in, before taking a tuft of Sylvain’s hair into his hand and bringing him close again. “Don’t fucking tease me,” he mutters, voice grumbling deep in his throat. “If you’re going to make out with me, do it right.”

And Sylvain does. When their lips next meet, the movement is much less rushed, and Felix is able to savor the touch before being bombarded by Sylvain’s impatient tongue. Felix hesitates as he normally does, not because of dislike or distrust, but because he has wanted this for _so fucking long_ that it’s hard to believe it’s truly happening. 

When he finally parts his lips, Sylvain wastes no time at all before entering his mouth to explore. Felix can taste him, sultry and stifling, yet delightful all the same. Sylvain, too, seems to be enjoying himself, outlining the back of Felix’s teeth with the tip of his tongue. Caressing his every crevice. Reveling in his flavor. 

A slight tilt of his head has Sylvain’s tongue prodding ever deeper into Felix’s mouth, and Felix swears he’s going to choke. He pushes away, gasping for a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been deprived of, and his fingers cling to Sylvain’s shirt. “Fuck,” he pants, overly aware of the cool moisture tainting his lips.

“Felix,” Sylvain whispers, and their eyes meet briefly. There’s some semblance of emotion, something Felix has never seen, and warmth pools in the pit of his stomach as he recognizes it. _Affection._ “Gods, Felix.” He runs his fingers through Felix’s hair, pulling it gently from its coiffure. 

“I’m supposed to be comforting you, remember?” Felix jests, voice hoarse. 

“You’re doing amazing,” comes the reply, and Felix can _hear_ the admiration dripping from his words. “I feel fucking amazing, Felix. Make me feel even better.”

Felix indulges him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to everyone for your support! It's always wonderful to have some reassurance!
> 
> See you in, like, 30 hours :>


	5. Learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Delay over; sorry for the wait! I'll be back to one chapter a day from now until next notice.

They’re not _dating_ or _exclusive_ or even _together_, but something about them screams intimacy, be it the way their fingers intertwine while they’re alone in the library or the way they glance endearingly at one another from across the training grounds. There’s simply something about them, something intangible yet obvious all at once.

Felix, usually deeply reserved and blunt when approached, now smiles every now and again for seemingly no reason and is more open to conversation. The first time it happens is to Annette, and she sputters uncharacteristically, dropping the book she had been holding to the floor. Next is Ashe, who immediately presses a hand to Felix’s forehead to ensure he hasn’t contracted some deadly illness. 

Sylvain, normally boisterous and flirtatious regarding any creature that breathes, engages in genuine exchanges and takes his studies seriously for perhaps the first time instead of loitering around the marketplace, preying on females.

Something about them is different, but the Blue Lions have no leads. Dimitri is far too dense to suspect a thing, only briefly confronting Sylvain to congratulate him on his recent spurt of maturity. Dedue, silent and thoughtful, seems to know, but his lips remain sealed, even in the presence of his curious liege. Ingrid, however, is perceptive as a hawk and pulls Felix aside to interrogate him.

“I will not…prod,” she says, eyes fixated on Felix’s neck, “but I must warn you that you and Sylvain have been the talk of the monastery for almost a month now and….” She’s too distracted to finish her sentence, and her hands snake up to the collar of Felix’s shirt to tug it upward. “You are both being frighteningly obvious.”

“Obvious?” he queries, naïve. 

She scowls, withdrawing her hands to rummage through her bag. After a moment of digging, she emerges with a circular mirror and, tugging Felix’s collar down, shoves it into his hands. “Take a look at your neck and say that again.”

He does as he’s told, brows furrowing slightly upon spotting the dark bruises dotting his collarbones. “Obvious,” he mutters, expression echoing her own. 

Sylvain _has_ been drifting downward as of late, but Felix, with absolutely no prior expertise, knows nothing of marking and what it symbolizes. He’d seen hickeys before, of course, but he had always assumed they were injuries from training. 

Ingrid has been eyeing him for some time now, expression a cross between exasperated and disbelieving, and she latches onto his wrist to drag him somewhere more private. 

Once they’re surrounded by hedges—Ingrid still peeks over to ensure no one has followed or is otherwise nearby—she inhales deeply. “You need to cover yourself up or, better yet, tell Sylvain not to mark you where others might see. Try makeup. Do something. I cannot be the only person to have seen this; if other people connect the dots, rumors will spread quickly.”

Felix, feeling a resounding heat rise to his face, glances away and rubs his neck. They’d been going at it for a few months now—never anything more than kissing, but Felix is still overly-conscious of the fact that he may have been seen sporting other dubious marks during training sessions or in the bathhouse. 

“I know it is not in my place to ask, but why Sylvain?” Ingrid continues, concern marking her features. “He is a notorious flirt. I know not how long you two have been an item, but he has not relented when it comes to…soliciting.”

“Why should he? I haven’t asked him to,” Felix admits, still glancing at the ground as though it’s the most interesting thing on the planet. 

Sylvain had, of course, offered to cease his flirtatious habits, but Felix could see no reason as to why he should. They aren’t together. Felix doesn’t own Sylvain, and Felix is not owned by Sylvain, either. 

They’re just friends who hide in each other’s room after curfew. 

Friends who talk about memories past under the cover of darkness.

Friends who maybe kiss every now and then.

Friends who might be willing to go a step further if prompted.

“Shit,” he mutters, feeling absolutely mortified of his own ignorance. “What do I do?”

“Your decision,” Ingrid replies passively, throwing her hands in the air for effect. “I’ve no say in what you and Sylvain decide to do. I just thought I ought to warn you about your incredibly obvious naïveté.”

She wanders away, still scowling, and leaves Felix to continue staring at himself through her mirror. 

The markings are painfully obvious to him now that they’ve been pointed out, and he can hardly focus on any task throughout the rest of the day without having a hand drift up to touch. 

He decides that he _must_ confront Sylvain.

* * *

Felix had completely, entirely, absolutely intended to speak to Sylvain about his inappropriate behavior later that night. He had prepared a strongly-worded lecture over in his head multiple times, with gestures and facial expressions to match, but—

But, what? He cannot remember. 

He recalls sitting on his bed. He recalls going over that same speech one final time, enacting every step as he had imagined it. He recalls Sylvain opening the door and waltzing in with an enormous goofy grin. And then…here they are now, doing exactly what he had intended to put a stop to.

And now, he isn’t sure if he _wants_ to stop to this.

Sylvain’s mouth is hot against his own, wet and anxious, as if he cannot get enough of Felix’s taste. His breathing is jagged and his gentle thumbs caress Felix’s cheeks, directing him softly. When they part for air, their lips remain connected by thin strands of saliva; Sylvain stares down at them as if marveled. 

“Gods,” he mutters, leaning in. Felix, awaiting another reunion, parts his lips, but is surprised to instead feel Sylvain’s tongue cleaning up whatever moisture had managed to cling to his upper lip. When he pulls away, he rests his forehead against Felix’s; they remain this way for quite some time, heavy breaths mingling. 

“Sylvain,” Felix musters, surprised at the twinge in his own voice. 

“Felix,” Sylvain replies, and their eyes lock. Felix has never seen him so emotionally vulnerable; where he would usually attempt to hide his feelings with a smile and a laugh, Sylvain now sits expressively needy. His hands drift from Felix’s face slowly down to his shoulders, as if to anchor himself. “Gods,” he repeats.

Felix swallows whatever reprimand he had been intending to deliver and fiddles with the collar of his shirt. “More,” he murmurs, knowing Sylvain will not progress unless he vocalizes his desires. 

“Yeah,” Sylvain mutters, eyes glazed with desire. He leans in, pressing his mouth to Felix’s throat, and Felix stifles a sound by biting his lip. He remains in one spot for a moment, steadily sucking on Felix’s pale skin, and Felix is damn sure there’ll be a mark there by morning. 

But he doesn’t care.

His fingers sift through Sylvain’s hair, pressing and tugging all at once, and he feels a pleasant vibration tickle his throat as Sylvain laughs. “Eager?” Sylvain whispers into his skin. He hesitates for a moment before pressing his teeth into Felix’s skin and Felix feels his hips instinctively snap forward.

Sylvain pulls away abruptly and glances at him, eyes wide. Felix is an absolute mess—sweat matting his hair to his forehead and cheeks, lips coated in his own drivel, pupils dilated—but he’s conscious enough to hide the reddening of his face with a weak hand. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Gods, Felix,” Sylvain says, and Felix expects him to chide him for his erotic reaction. However, Sylvain leans his head deep into Felix’s shoulder and, voice as soft as an exhale, says, “I think I’m in love with you.”

There’s something different about this confession; something about the way the words form and stick. The first time Sylvain had told Felix he loved him was…desperate. Clingy. Felix interpreted that previous admittance as something thoughtless. Sylvain had been in the process of grieving and, therefore, likely had no idea what he was saying or to whom.

This is different. This is…real. Sylvain is okay, conscious, aware, and honest. 

As he takes Felix’s hand into his own and kisses down the length of his calloused fingers, Felix feels desire pool in the pit of his stomach. 

“Sylvain,” Felix finally says, and the redhead stops fondling his hand to pay attention. “Why haven’t you—why haven’t we—” He pinches the bridge of his nose, hardly able to pry the words from his mouth. “Why haven’t we fucked yet?”

Sylvain blinks once, then twice, then an excruciatingly slow third time. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to,” he admits, tone akin to that of an admonished child, “and I don’t want you to think….” His voice drifts off slowly and that forced smile that Felix is so used to returns to his face. “Nah, never mind that. I don’t wanna kill the mood.” 

He makes to return his attention to Felix’s hand, but Felix pulls away. “Tell me,” he snaps softly, current condition allowing little more than a hint of annoyance to tinge his tone. 

Sylvain groans and pulls away, apparently through with the tenderness. Felix pulls himself together as best he can and they sit in silence on the edge of his bed for quite some time, Sylvain’s head hanging low as he ponders. “I don’t want you to think I’m only in it for your body,” he finally says. 

“But you are.”

“I absolutely am not,” he counters, crossing his arms. “I mean, you do have a great body, but that’s just a plus. I like you for you, damnit. And I know you won’t believe me if I just say it, so I’ve been trying to act on it.”

The sentiment is endearing, if not hilarious. “So, chastity is your way of showing love?”

“No, not chastity. Self-control. I never said I didn’t want you.” He turns to Felix and pouts slightly, tips of his ears bright red. “You’re just teasing me now, aren’t you?”

“A little,” Felix confesses. He appreciates the sentiment, although the slight tent in his slacks denies it. 

Sylvain is doing all that he can to show affection in his own, convoluted way. Has all the kissing and marking been a ploy to mask his desire to go further? 

Intimate atmosphere dissolved, Felix sighs. “By the way, Ingrid got mad.”

“You told her?” Sylvain falls back so that he’s lying flat on the bed. “Gods, she’s gonna give me the lecture of the century.”

“Probably,” Felix nods, reclining beside him. Their limbs tangle for a moment as they adjust themselves into a tender embrace. Felix’s ear rests against Sylvain’s chest. His heartbeat is halcyon; his breaths, rhythmic. “She was mad about the, uh—” He brings a hand up to his own neck. “The marks.”

“Crap,” Sylvain laughs airily. “Well, you train a lot; you can say they’re bruises.”

“I…guess I could,” Felix relents. 

They lie in silence, Sylvain’s fingers running their course through Felix’s hair. There’s something about this position, this mood, that sets Felix’s mind at ease, and he sinks deeper into Sylvain’s touch. With the flick of a wrist, Felix conjures a gentle Wind, and the candle that illuminates the room flickers out.

* * *

In the weeks to come, Ingrid confronts Felix a multitude of times to give him advice. More than once, she drags him to Annette’s room so that the sprightly female can apply makeup to his more obvious hickeys. He takes a seat at her desk while she kneels before him, applying some skin-toned cream to his…_wounds_. 

In the meantime, Mercedes interrogates him and offers advice.

“If you apply ice to your bruises, they’ll fade more quickly,” she says with a smile, and Ingrid fights back a laugh from her roost on Annette’s bed.

“No, Mercie,” Annette gently corrects, dabbing a sponge against the pale skin of Felix’s neck. “These are hickeys.”

“Oh, goodness.” She seems a tad embarrassed at the revelation, and a cautious hand rises to hide her smile. “I assume it should work for those types of bruises, too.” 

“Give him more advice, Mercedes,” Ingrid prods, suddenly thoroughly enjoying the conversation. 

“More? Oh, well, I’m not sure what I should say….”

“Be as thorough as you’d like,” Ingrid replies, and the mischievous smirk on her face tells Felix that she fully intends to make this as humiliating as possible. 

Mercedes hums for a moment, deep into thought. “Well, I suppose I should start with the basics. Get to know your partner well. Different people enjoy different things.” 

Felix suppresses a groan of displeasure and Annette, still knelt before him and dappling at his throat, lets loose a snort.

“Do you know what an erogenous zone is? Your partner may like to be touched in different places. It may be somewhere simple, like the back of their neck or their thighs, but some people have zones that are harder to reach. Like Annie, she likes it when—”

“Woah, woah!” Annette screeches, bounding up to cover Mercedes’s mouth. “That’s not something Felix needs to know, Mercie!”

“Ah, you’re right. I’m sorry, that was careless. Let’s move on to…,” she hums in thought as Annette lowers herself to Felix’s neck once more, “safe sex practices.”

Felix coughs, hard, and Annette’s hard work is immediately smeared against his collar. “I’d rather not—”

“No, no, I insist,” Ingrid intervenes. “I’ve been quite concerned about your hygiene, considering how many people Sylvain slept with beforehand.”

“Sylvain?” Mercedes asks with an innocent smile.

_Fuck._

“Oh. Oh dear,” she mutters when realization hits. “Sylvain is your partner?”

Felix can feel a deep heat rise to the tips of his ears and his fists clench against his thighs. Something about revealing the news like this is absolutely vexing. “That’s—”

“I’m not a man, myself, but I do know a bit about the male body. Do you top?”

From the floor, redoing her damaged work, Annette chimes in. “Mercie, look at him compared to Sylvain.”

“Oh, you’re right, Annie. Then I’ll assume you bottom.”

"You should never make assumptions," Ingrid pipes in. "I have heard a thing or two about Sylvain's preferences being...submissive."

Felix wants to die. “We haven’t fucked yet,” he snaps, wanting nothing more than to escape the conversation.

“Oh, goodness, how crass,” Mercedes chuckles behind her hand. “I suppose I had better teach you well for when you do decide to, erm…_make love._”

“You should make it super romantic and cute,” Annette adds with a beam. “Get candles and flowers and scented oils and—oh! The ball’s coming up! You should totally do it then!”

“That’s a great idea, Annie!”

Ingrid sneers at him from her perch, conspicuously aware of what she has dragged Felix into.

Felix wants absolutely nothing more than the sweet caress of death to smite him at this very moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was super self-indulgent haha. I'm so sorry. Also sorry for blue balling.. Plot will return (somewhat) next chapter.
> 
> Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow!
> 
> P.S. I finally took the time to make a storyboard for this fic and we've hit the halfway point :>


	6. Goddess Tower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note this chapter includes **explicit sexual content**. Enjoy!

Rodrigue had coerced Felix into taking ballroom-style dance lessons as a very small child, for the hell of it, and it was in those classes that Felix learned how to waltz. 

He’d been atrocious at it when he had only just started—his instructor had been so frustrated with his incompetence that she forced him to partner with a broken broomstick for a couple months. However, be it his instructor’s incessant judgment or his willingness to learn and better himself that prodded him forward, Felix found that he was a particularly good dancer. 

When meeting with the Holy Kingdom’s nobility, Rodrigue would partner his fledgling son with an array of young women, not so much to find a spouse, but to form connections with the upper class—with the people who were wealthy and moderately powerful, but not of the status to be called “noble.” People who would be willing to donate to campaigns if prompted. People who could support an army if the need ever arose.

As a child, he had enjoyed every second of it. He had enjoyed meeting new people and showing off his skills and hearing the _click_ of his dress shoes against the marble floor. Dancing had even come into play when Glenn finally allowed him to place his hands on a training sword and learn to spar; his nimbleness on the dance floor proved to increase his agility and balance in battle. 

Now? Felix wishes he had never set foot in a damned ballroom.

“I insist,” Byleth says scornfully, hand clenched almost painfully around Felix’s wrist. “You have the grace of a dancer; I want you to participate in the White Heron Cup.”

Byleth had never seen Felix dance, and so he could potentially pretend to have no former experience—

“And don’t even think about messing up. I’ve heard you’re actually very skilled.”

“Who lied to you?” he attempts.

“Are you calling your father a liar?” She gives an uncharacteristic grin, knowing she has the upper hand. “Duke Fraldarius visited the monastery a few days ago, and he was quite adamant about praising you.”

Felix scoffs, turning to hide his face. If his father is praising him, then he must be spouting nonsense about his feats as a child, when he was obedient and sincere. Rodrigue had never outwardly praised him back then; he must miss those days, back when Felix was too simple-minded to bear his own opinions and ideals. Back when he had control over his youngest son. Back when Glenn— the more talented, more prosperous, more marketable son—was House Fraldarius’s heir.

“I only know how to waltz,” he concedes, raising his hands in defeat. “Don’t expect me to win this stupid cup.”

“I do expect you to win,” she replies with a stout nod. “I’ll train you myself.”

Felix had never expected Byleth to be good at dancing and, to both his frustration and confusion, she isn’t. She has him practice the same steps in quick succession, giving only a calculating once-over and an approving hum before nodding and allowing him to be on his way.

Even so, the brevity of the lesson does not make it any less embarrassing; Felix swore he could feel dozens of eyes trained on his back as he held the waist and hand of an imaginary partner. 

His suspicions are confirmed when Annette, wide-eyed in marvel, approaches him on the training ground after the session. She waves at him and, knowing she holds information that she could potentially use against him, Felix drops his training sword and meanders toward her.

Rising up on the tips of her toes to whisper in his ear, she asks, “Did you decide to dance to impress Sylvain?”

He fumbles with his words for a moment, unable to control his flailing tongue, and instead shakes his head. “Why would I do that?”

“Oh.” She falls back, rocking on her heels, and thinks for a moment. “Because it’s cute?”

“I am _not cute_,” Felix snaps, “nor am I trying to be.”

She smirks at him, as though knowing a facet of him that even he is unfamiliar with, and lurches forward, again straining to whisper into his ear. “Come to my room later. You have the _fattest_ hickey on your Adam’s apple.” With that, she leaves, and Felix struggles fruitlessly to hide his marking.

* * *

To Felix’s dismay, he wins the damned White Heron Cup and is gifted a frilled outfit that he swears to the goddess he will never use. 

He crumples the blue-hemmed ensemble, tossing it somewhere deep in a drawer where clothes certainly don’t belong, and effectively forgets about it.

* * *

Annette and Mercedes are relentless when it comes to preparing Felix for the night of the ball, especially the afternoon before the event. They groom him as though he were some sort of show horse; Mercedes goes as far as to clean beneath his fingernails, stating some nonsense or other about oral hygiene. 

Felix had laughed curtly when she said it, but now his mind is full of thoughts of his own fingers, slick with Sylvain’s saliva, pressing circles into his tongue, into the depths of his throat—

He shudders, and Annette scolds him for moving while she is so diligently trying to conceal a handful of hickeys peppering his collar.

Ingrid, at her usual seat on Annette’s bed, is more than moderately interested. “You’ve been quite docile throughout this ordeal,” she comments, holding her chin in her hands. “I thoroughly expected you to throw a fit and fight against this.”

“Could it be you’ve decided to seduce Sylvain tonight?” Mercedes asks with a smile. 

Felix exhales, turning his head and earning yet another reproach from Annette. “I…thought that was obvious.”

Ingrid, who had been midway through a chuckle, coughs harshly. “Oh, goodness,” she sputters, face about as red as Felix imagines his own should be. “I—uh, you—have you—” She clears her throat, attempting to no avail to calm herself. “Goddess, this is the absolute _worst._”

“You’re telling me,” Felix snaps, jerking into another movement, and Annette drops her makeup sponge in defeat. “I’m the one being fondled.”

“I am the one watching my two best friends grow romantically involved,” she counters, leaning forward harshly to emphasize her point. “I am the one who will have to pick up the pieces of your heart when Sylvain inevitably shatters it.”

Felix wants to be mad—he wants to lash out at her for speaking ill of the man he had so recently endeared himself to—but he knows that Ingrid is only looking out for him to the best of her abilities. She has witnessed Sylvain’s flirtatious nature first-hand and therefore thinks the worst of him, but Felix has seen a side of him that he’s sure he has never shown any other person. 

Sylvain’s caramel eyes could hide nothing under Felix’s scrutiny and, when observing them, Felix could only find candid infatuation.

“I, for one, think you should give him a shot,” Mercedes gently offers, turning her attention to Felix’s hair. “Whenever I go to the marketplace now, I hear talk of how that ‘crazy redheaded flirt’ hasn’t been making rounds. Even though it’s small, I suppose that should be reassuring.”

“Oh, me too!” Annette declares. “I used to see him creeping around in the library; he doesn’t really do that anymore. Last time I saw him there, he was actually reading a book! I could hardly believe my own two eyes.”

Ingrid glares at a flowerpot on the floor. “Well, I still do not trust him. He is a notorious heartbreaker; I’d only be inclined to believe he has changed if I see it myself.” She crosses her arms for a moment before finishing, “Just…do not allow him to hurt you, Felix.”

Mercedes arranges Felix’s hair into what feels like the most complex updo the world has ever been graced with while Annette magnanimously finishes her work on his skin. Once they have finished, Annette gives him a chaste once-over before nodding in approval. “Now all you need to do is get dressed without ruining our hard work!”

“That may prove impossible,” Mercedes says, concerned. “If you need any touch-ups, feel free to return. Although things will be far more hectic as we prepare Ingrid.”

Ingrid, hearing her name, turns her attention to Mercedes and flails her hands about. “Oh, no, no,” she stammers. “That will not be necessary—”

“Nonsense!” Mercedes replies with a smile.

The girls surround Ingrid, speaking jargon about how best to dress her, and Felix sneaks away before the attention can return to him. Though slightly cross with her, cannot help but feel somewhat bad for Ingrid.

* * *

He had somehow managed to not only slip into his ensemble but go through an entire night of waltzing without messing up his makeup and coiffure only for Sylvain to absolutely eradicate Annette and Mercedes’s hard work on the balcony just west of the chapel.

“Sylvain,” Felix chokes out, feeling his partner’s hand resting heavy against the back of his head; he’d ruin that painstaking updo at this rate—

“Gods, Felix,” he practically whines, voice husky with intense desire. His right hand has its fingers clenched tightly into Felix’s hair; his left rests eagerly against his waist. “You were—Gods, seeing you dance—I could barely stop myself from coming up to you in there.”

Felix could very well say the same. Though he’d tried desperately to focus on the food, the drink, and the dance, his eyes would wander to Sylvain in his dark suit and his vibrant blue corsage. Sylvain could hardly dance tonight. Felix had found that odd; he is certain Margrave Gautier would have taught his son basic ballroom dancing. However, seeing his current condition—unabatedly aroused—Felix can entirely understand his lack of poise.

“I’m not gonna make it to your room,” Sylvain chuckles, breath tickling against the makeup Annette had applied to Felix’s neck. “You’ll have to excuse me tonight, Felix. I’ve just been wanting you so damn bad and you look so—” He cuts himself off by planting a wet kiss to Felix’s jawline, and the shorter shudders at the contact.

“Well, try,” Felix murmurs. “We are not doing anything out here, where someone might see.”

“Then carry me,” Sylvain mumbles, dragging his tongue down the length of Felix’s jaw. “I just—I don’t think my legs are gonna last.”

At this rate, it may be more dangerous to attempt the trek back to the dorms. Most of the students are still inside, but a few have made their way to the bridge connecting the chapel to the monastery and Felix is nearly positive Ingrid is there. He doesn't need another lecture or any prying eyes. Against his better judgment, he licks his lips and mutters, “Goddess Tower.”

“Huh?” Sylvain pulls away rapidly and stares at Felix as though he’s just said something preposterous. “Felix, no. I mean, yes, _fuck yes_, but no. You have no idea what I might do to you in there, all alone and vulnerable and—”

Felix is immensely grateful for the darkness that shields his flush as he mumbles, “I want the same thing you want.”

Sylvain’s lashes flutter as he struggles to comprehend what Felix has just said. Upon cognizance, he takes Felix’s hand into his own and effectively drags him toward the vacant tower. 

The stairwell is seemingly endless as they ascend. Felix’s mind races with all of the things they may possibly do, all of the marks he may bear by morning, and he presses the back of his hand to his mouth to repress a sound.

Somewhere in the middle, Sylvain halts, and Felix unintentionally rams into his backside. “I can’t wait any longer,” he whines, pressing Felix against the stone wall. 

“Fuck it,” Felix replies quietly, popping the buttons of his own jacket. His fingers tremble in anticipation and Sylvain, impatiently passionate, pushes his hands away to do the job more efficiently. 

The jacket slips to the floor roughly as Sylvain moves along to Felix’s white dress shirt, this time grabbing at the collar to rip the shirt open. A button or three tear off, bouncing quietly down the stairwell, as Sylvain tosses the second layer to the floor, but Felix cannot find the state of mind to give a damn.

Sylvain presses hard kisses to Felix’s sternum, occasionally slipping teeth into the fray, and his thumbs press deep into Felix’s sides. When he bites, rough enough to elicit a strange squeak from Felix, he glances up at him through his lashes and licks his own lips.

“Guide me,” he rasps. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I don’t fucking know, Sylvain,” Felix huffs in response, running his hands across the other’s clothed chest. “Make me feel good.”

“Gods,” Sylvain breathes, dropping a hand to palm gently against Felix’s growing erection. Even just this initial touch has Felix’s hips jerking forward, desperately seeking Sylvain’s grasp. “I didn’t bring any oil,” he seethes, fingers gliding toward the buttons of Felix’s trousers. “I swear, I didn’t think I’d get this far.”

Felix brings his hands to meet Sylvain’s shoulders, steadying himself against the friction that Sylvain’s hand awards his growing desire. “Oil?” he sputters. “I don’t care. Do something, Sylvain.” His voice is a whine; Sylvain’s fingers press harder against his groin at the sound.

In a swift movement, he has pulled Felix's slacks down, and they pool around his feet. Sylvain's hand hesitates against the fabric of Felix’s undergarments. “Hand or mouth?” he asks.

Confused and dazed with lust, Felix mumbles questioningly, “Mouth?”

“Right,” Sylvain replies with a brusque nod; he falls almost painfully to his knees and fondles with the band of Felix’s underwear, eventually releasing Felix’s ache from its binding. Before Felix has the chance to query, Sylvain has stuck his tongue out and licked a thick stripe along the underside of his cock.

“Shit,” he hisses, hands instinctively flying to grasp at something—anything that might keep him from losing his composure. His fingers end up tangled in Sylvain’s hair and, when graced with another lascivious lap, he jerks Sylvain’s head closer to himself.

“I’ve barely done anything,” Sylvain chuckles, and Felix feels his breath against that cool ribbon on his underside. “You’re dripping.”

“Well, do _something_,” Felix chokes out, and his eyes squeeze shut as Sylvain pops the head of his cock between his lips. 

Felix loses himself in the sensation, arching his back and closing his eyes and gripping at Sylvain all at once. A part of him wants to glance down, to see Sylvain on his knees and submissive to his every whim; another part of him keeps his eyes shut to avoid the urge to _fuck the absolute shit out of Sylvain’s mouth._

Sylvain takes him slow and gentle at first, teasing his length with the occasional grate of his teeth, but eventually yearn consumes him and he’s just about swallowing what Felix has to offer. 

Felix’s knees quake as he feels the head of his cock ram against the back of Sylvain’s throat; feels Sylvain’s lips tighten around him; feels the tip of Sylvain’s nose brush against the thick hair leading down to his groin. “Sylvain,” he groans, his fingers clenched so tightly around ruby hair that he feels they may break. “Fuck, I—I’m close.”

Sylvain gives a grunt of acknowledgment, vibration tickling Felix's sensitive loins, and starts to shift beneath him. Out of curiosity, Felix cracks an eye open.

He’s somehow freed his own erection from his pants with a sole hand and, with that same clumsy grip, he begins to pump himself in rhythm with the bob of his head. Just the sight—that lewd visual of Sylvain pleasuring himself while Felix is deep inside his mouth—is enough to have Felix bucking as far down Sylvain’s throat as he can before forcing himself out ahead of his inevitable release.

When he does orgasm, it’s onto his own expectant palm, and he hears Sylvain reach his peak shortly afterward on the floor before him. Unsteady and thoroughly pleased, Felix sinks to the floor, the skin of his back scraping against the stone bricks of the tower. He considers pulling his clothes back on and tidying himself, but he’s in such a state of euphoria that he can hardly focus his dilated pupils.

Sylvain, too, remains crouched on all fours for a few minutes, catching his breath while smearing the mess he had made onto the masonry. “You should’ve let me swallow,” he mutters, voice even more raucous than before. When he looks up to meet Felix's gaze, scant tears line his bottom lashes and his lips are bright and swollen.

“That’s…probably not hygienic,” Felix replies, entranced, and he internally scolds himself for remembering now, of all times, Mercedes’s thorough safe-sex lectures. 

“Is it hygienic to kiss you after I just sucked you off?”

Felix considers for a moment. He’d usually be disgusted at the prospect but now, mouth watering with need, he can find no reason to decline. “I don’t care if it isn’t.”

Sylvain gratifies him after helping him back into his clothes; there they rest for a moment, two precocious teenagers sitting in the Goddess Tower's stairwell, sharing fond kisses under the moonlight, and Felix finds himself wishing upon the stars that their peace might last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6/10 chapters done! Kinda sad to see this fic fly by so quick ;v;
> 
> Haven't written smut in forever, so it was definitely refreshing to return to my roots.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading and for the support! See you tomorrow!


	7. The Adrestian Invasion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains **minor mentions of mild gore**.

Trauma is an unending cycle of pain and torment. Felix knows this firsthand; he’s experienced the nightmares, the terror, the anxiety, associated with Glenn’s passing. There was a time where he would lose sleep over the thought of his father, having gone to a nearby village to monitor trade or account for his citizenry, dying on the road. 

He would cower under his sheets, praying incoherencies to a goddess that he wasn’t even sure he believed in, for his friends and loved ones to stay alive. Death was so frightful to him that he would tear the pages regarding such instances from his storybooks; the Fraldarius library’s books were suddenly defaced with messy scribbles that blurred any instance of suffering.

His own experience had lasted almost an embarrassingly long time and, though friends had told him that there was nothing to be ashamed of, he could never quite shake the idea that he was far too emotionally invested compared to others.

That realization caused distance. Felix had initially tried not to get too close to his classmates at Garreg Mach; he knew them by name and by their weapon of choice, but he never grew familiar enough to learn their favorite subjects, middle names, or which dorm they resided within. 

Felix felt acquainted enough to greet those he knew, but not attached enough to mourn so fervently as he had when his brother departed. That was exactly what he had wanted. Things were acceptable when distanced. He knew he would not be hurt again so long as he maintained this stance.

His efforts were in vain once he came to terms with his feelings for Sylvain. As months pass and those seeds of fondness culminate into adoration, he finds that recognizable fear of loss plaguing his nightmares time and again. 

But this—this is not a nightmare, nor is it a dream or an apparition. 

The monastery had been attacked and, in the fray, the students had been instructed to escape on their own. Most left in small packs; a good number of the Blue Lions had stayed behind to wait for Dimitri, who insisted on staying behind to defend Garreg Mach. 

That is how Sylvain and Felix find themselves among bodies, most either dead or too wounded to continue attacking, and it is how Felix finds the world crumbling around him once more.

Sylvain, lying in a pool of his own blood, eyes clouded over, is real and tangible and wounded and dying and Felix cannot fathom what he should do, what spell he should cast, who he should call—

“Hey, ‘Lix,” Sylvain says, voice calm though the lance jutting through his ribcage says otherwise. He takes a few heavy breaths; they’re a strain, Felix is well aware, and he wants to do something, _anything_— “I’ll be fine, ‘kay? I want you to find my wyvern. Take her and go home, ‘kay? I’ll be fine.”

“No,” Felix snaps, falling to his knees in the dirt beside Sylvain. The lance is shoved in deep; Felix wouldn’t be surprised if it managed to poke through Sylvain’s back. But his lack of sputtering and the fact that he’s managed to maintain consciousness lead Felix to believe that the Adrestian attacker had somehow missed vital organs. “I’m not leaving you here. I know Heal—”

“Felix. Look at me.” Felix does, but Sylvain’s eyes are so hazy that Felix is sure he cannot see. “I’m not gonna die. I promised, remember? So I want you to go home, and stay safe, and wait for me, got it?”

“Sylvain—”

“Go home, stay safe, and wait for me.”

“Sylvain, please,” Felix chokes, and it’s then that he realizes he’s tearing up. How long has it been since he’s cried? “This isn’t a game. This isn’t a mock battle. If I leave you, you’ll die.” 

“Go home,” he repeats, “stay safe, and wait for me. And don’t start crying, or I’m gonna think I’m really dying out here.” Weakly, as though with his final breath, he whistles for his wyvern. “Her name’s Mick. After my brother, naturally. She likes rabbit meat, I think. I…can’t remember. But she also gets cold real easy, so—"

He’s rambling, trying with the final remnants of his strength to convince Felix that he’s okay, but he begins sweating bullets as the effort catches up to him. Felix uses his distractedness to begin casting Heal. The scar of Thoron stings against his efforts, a bodily plead to stop, but he ignores it.

“Hey, stop it,” Sylvain mutters, voice growing weak as the white magic sears. “Stop wasting your energy. I’m fine—”

“I’m pulling the spear out.”

“Don’t, Felix, please,” Sylvain says, extending a weak hand. “We both know you’re not the best healer. I’ll bleed out. Please, just listen to me this once. Go home, stay safe, and wait for me.”

When Mick lands, it’s right beside her dying master, and Sylvain pats her leg gently. 

“Sylvain—”

“Get on and take her home. I’ll be fine.” His gaze is growing more and more distant as the pain becomes overwhelming. “I’ll find a healer. Mercedes’s gotta be around here somewhere.”

“Sylvain,” Felix replies through gritted teeth. “You can get on, too. We can both—”

“Felix,” he snaps, and Felix’s shoulders shoot back at the scolding. “Get the fuck out of here, Felix. You’re fucking pissing me off.”

Felix’s heart drops—he knows Sylvain is only saying this to dissuade him, knows the words are a final attempt to get him to listen, but the fact that it works only brings more tears to his eyes. Tears of frustration, of fear, of anger—

“Go fucking home already!” Sylvain seethes. His voice cracks and he chokes on the words for a short moment, obviously discontent with saying them, but he doesn’t retract them.

Felix can hardly breathe. The world is crashing at his feet, taking his best friend—his _lover_—down with it, and all he can do is watch. 

Mick nudges him as though to prompt him to obey her master’s dying wish and, be it in dazed acceptance or subconscious assent, Felix climbs onto her back.

It isn’t until they’re in the sky above the battlefield that Felix realizes what he’s done, the fate he’s left Sylvain to, and he beats against Mick’s scaly backside, yelling at her to land. She’s diligent; she ignores his every lash and continues northbound. Even when his aggressive resistance turns to sniveling and tearful begging, she maintains her course. He considers jumping but, from this height, it would mean certain death. 

There is nothing to be done, no one to see or hear his pleas. It feels as though even the goddess has abandoned him.

Somewhere in the middle of his fit, he falls asleep, dreams of death and destruction and pain, and wakes on the ground at the doorstep to House Fraldarius, Mick nowhere to be found. He almost thinks it had all been a complex nightmare but, based on the blood coating his fingertips and the way his scar throbs, it had been inexorably real.

* * *

Alone and afraid. That is how Felix spends his first few months back home. Rodrigue had left to tend to the political turmoil in Fhirdiad and, without the sibling he grew up alongside, the Fraldarius manor feels jarringly empty. 

Every knock sends Felix sprinting to the front door, expecting Sylvain, but he is always greeted by a delivery or a messenger. He stops eating, stops sparring, stops _living_ as he awaits news from either House Gautier or its heir. 

Six months in, Rodrigue returns to find his son nearly a corpse in his room, starved of food and deprived of a will to live. Nursing him back to physical health is simple enough; Felix is nearly too far gone mentally to be saved, though. He writhes in agony nightly, fingers tearing at his clothing at though it were some sort of binding, and almost always wakes in a cold sweat.

This continues for another year until Ingrid arrives. He’s intent on pestering her about Sylvain, but the twinge of sadness in her tone tells him all he needs to know. “I’ve not heard a thing of him,” she admits. “After Dimitri was executed, we tallied up the losses and…we could not find the bodies of either Sylvain or Dedue.”

His condition, which admittedly hadn’t been improving at all up until that point, worsens from that day forth and Rodrigue, rarely home because of his role in society, can hardly keep tabs on him. After hiring a plethora of maids and physicians who all deemed his case impossible, he does what any sane father would.

“Felix.” His voice behind Felix’s mahogany doors is stern but tinged with concern. “Allow me entry.”

Splayed on his bed and facing the wall, Felix ignores his father. 

Rodrigue enters anyway, and the scent of porridge fills the room as he places a tray on Felix’s nightstand. “I am concerned about your health, Felix. The servants tell me you have not been eating or exercising—”

“Get the fuck out of my room.”

“You must eat. I understand this war has been hard on you. If it would please you, I—”

“Get. Out.”

“I could invite Ingrid over more often. That would surely boost morale—”

Felix rises immediately and grabs his father by the collar of his shirt. “Are you fucking deaf? Get out of my fucking room.”

Rodrigue simply gazes at him, expressionless. “I know not what has caused this change in you, but you are my son, and I will see that you stay healthy even if that means I must become your enemy.”

_What has caused this change…?_

Felix clenches his teeth so roughly that they hurt. “What do you fucking think? Use that fucking brain of yours and tell me.” Before Rodrigue can try his luck at guessing what might sate Felix’s mood, his son answers his own query. “You don’t care about me, nor did you ever care about Glenn. Your words after his death make me want to retch—dying honorably? Bullshit. You should have been crying your eyes out, but you used honor as an excuse to cover up the fact that you never fucking loved either of us.”

Rodrigue opens his mouth to respond but closes it again, pondering. “I cannot deny that,” he finally replies, eyes still steady against Felix’s. “However, I will not claim that my reaction to Glenn’s death was appropriate or justifiable, nor that putting you both through such rigorous training as children to fit my noble ideologies was acceptable. I was—I am not a good father. I will not claim to be one. But allow me to attempt now, though far too late to redeem myself, to be the father you and Glenn deserved.”

An apology is not what Felix had been seeking but, hearing it, he releases Rodrigue’s collar and claps his palms against his eyes, holding back his own frustration. “I don’t want your sympathy or your help,” he says once his rage has partially subsided. “I’ll eat your stupid porridge, though.”

It’s enough to satisfy Rodrigue for the time being, and he only returns to Felix’s room to deliver meals—breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

At the third year mark, Ingrid and Count Galatea arrive to discuss marriage once more and this time, weary of war and life, neither object to the prospect. 

In Felix’s room the final night of her stay, Ingrid apologizes. “I told you it would be better to love and lose than to never love,” she says, voice small. “I should not have given you that advice. I should not have told you that the risk would someday be worth the reward. You’ve become…so different without Sylvain. It breaks me to see you so disheartened.”

Felix does not reply. He can only lie against the hardwood, consumed with guilt and other intangible emotions. 

“I should have known your situation would differ from my own. Though I could not predict that Sylvain would pass under such unfortunate circumstance, I should have known loss of any kind would deeply affect you. I recall how long it took you to recover from Glenn’s passing; I should have taken that into consideration.”

He listens but remains wordless.

“I suppose war truly is nothing short of hell,” she says, voice suddenly much more pained. “There is no place for love on the battlefield—”

“I never got to tell him I loved him.” 

There is a long pause in which only the gentle crackle of the candle in the corner of the room emits any sound. “Oh, Felix…,” Ingrid replies finally, voice quivering, and they fall into silence.

When she leaves the following morn, she does not offer any other words of wisdom, and House Fraldarius receives a letter of apology about a month later from Ingrid herself, stating that she could not marry Felix.

It provides little relief, as Felix is so emotionally numb that he would have married her if directed to do so.

A fourth year passes and finally, _finally_, Felix begins to forget. The war has come closer and closer to home and, in defense of his father’s territory, he departs to offer his services. Killing does not provide any thrill—there’s more disgust than anything else—but it does allow Felix to reclaim control over something. The movement of his blade is ever-precise under his guiding hand, and it’s just enough to distract him.

He considers becoming a sellsword and, against his father’s advice, departs from home to follow his newfound and sporadic ambition. 

It’s a life that provides what he had been seeking throughout most of his teenaged years: solitude, money, and the chance to spar against a variety of foes. Whenever a village maiden attempts to grow closer to him or a bartender pries a bit too much into his life, he migrates to a different town. His contractors are people he would never meet again—there is nobody to grow attached to, or to mourn for, or to fall in love with. He is alone and content.

A month into mercenary work, he stops caring about everything. Distant and aloof, he solicits taverns nightly and allows himself the bodily pleasure of the occasional prostitute—nothing satisfies him.

He is no longer a student, no longer a Fraldarius, and no longer a Crest-bearing noble; he is solely a man with a blurred past and memories he hopes to erase. 

But the past cannot be erased, and it catches up to him when he least expects it.

“Felix?” 

He stirs at the sound of his own name on a foreign tongue. He hasn’t told any of his contractors his real name in…how long has it been now? Turning to face the disturbance, he’s met with a somewhat familiar face.

“It is you! What’re you doing all the way out here?” The female claps a hand against his back and plants herself on the barstool beside him, ordering a drink from the bartender as though they were longtime friends. “Has the Empire already hit Eastern Faerghus, too?”

“Who’re you?” Felix snaps, already feeling the effects of the past few drinks he swallowed. “I’m not Felix.”

“Really?” she replies, raising a brow. “No, I think I’d recognize you anywhere. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me—you were always lurking in the training grounds like some sort of creep.”

Impatient, inebriated, and irritated, he lunges for her, grabbing at the orange collar of her jacket, and pulls her forward. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but that isn’t me. Leave me the fuck alone—”

“Woah, calm down.” She pries his drunken fingers off of her clothing and assures the bartender that they’re old pals. “It’s me, Leonie. You know, the one who wouldn’t shut up about your professor’s dad.” She laughs at herself for a moment, more of a reminiscent sound than anything else, as though wishing she could return to simpler times. 

“I don’t know,” Felix mutters, returning his attention to his drink. A few more heavy gulps and he may be able to block her out—

“Hey, you must be in Leicester to see Claude, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Stop playing dumb. I don’t know what the big deal is or what you’re trying to forget, but you should try to reconnect.” The bartender hands her a glass of some thick brown liquid and she downs it immediately, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand afterward and stating plainly, “He took someone you know in a while back. Someone injured in the invasion.”

Felix’s heart stops and he whips his head to face her. “Who?”

“Oh, no one you’d know,” she says, sly. “You’re not Felix, remember? Guess you shouldn’t care.”

“Who?” he repeats more fiercely, gripping his own glass with sufficient force to crack it. “I’m Felix fucking Fraldarius, okay? Who—”

“You already know,” she replies, downing another shot. “Someone who took a lance to the gut. That redhead who had a knack for flirting. Sylvain.”

Felix feels the color drain from his face and the glass shatters to pieces beneath his grip, tearing into his palm. As Leonie flounders about, trying to find a cloth to clean his wound, he stares at the floor.

Sylvain is alive. Of course he is. Of course all of those months Felix had desperately tried to forget him, to get over him, were spent in vain. 

“Why didn’t he go home?” he asks quietly, but Leonie is too focused on treating his gashes to hear. 

_Why didn’t he return?_

And it occurs to him, a gentle nagging that he cannot seem to dissuade, that perhaps Sylvain is happier without him. Happier here in Leicester, where the bindings of his noble lineage cannot reach him, and where he can forget all of the trauma he faced growing up in a home where he was valued solely for his Crest. Leicester is his home now.

If Sylvain had chosen to forget, to put everything and everyone he had known behind him, then there is nothing to be done. Felix cannot bring himself to drag Sylvain back to Faerghus out of greed, nor to face him and force him to remember bitter memories solely for the selfish pleasure of reuniting with his lover.

If Sylvain could forget, then Felix could, too.

Leonie tends to the cuts in his hand and, once messily bandaged, he thanks her softly and makes to leave. “You…aren’t going to see Sylvain?” she asks before he can escape earshot.

He turns to face her one final time and the words sting in his throat as he forces them out; “I don’t know who that is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was informed by a friend that last chapter didn't get an upload notification or something,,,my own fault, I tried uploading differently from the usual way. So here's the next chapter a touch early as an apology ;v; 
> 
> As usual, thank you for reading so far and showing support; see you tomorrow!


	8. Gronder Field

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this chapter contains **minor mentions of mild gore**.

Leicester, maintaining neutrality in light of the war, provides little opportunity for business—that is the excuse Felix gives when he decides to return to Faerghus. Deep down, he knows the truth; he knows he has decided to leave to avoid running into Sylvain, and to try as he might to lose himself in the political chaos of his homeland.

As expected, he is hired almost immediately by Count Charon to dispose of bandits who have been pillaging villages in his territory. If he recognizes Felix, he does not mention it, and Felix takes that as incentive to accept his hefty proposal. 

The bandits, according to the count, make their home in the abandoned monastery. When Felix arrives at the entrance, partially demolished and devoid of life, he cannot repress the surge of memories that resurface. 

The marketplace is barren, only worthless wares remaining where there were once rows upon rows of merchants selling rarities. He’d bought a coveted sword crafted by Zoltan here once, depleting most of his savings, but it had been entirely worth the cost upon seeing Dimitri’s jealous gaze during their next battle. He’d gone with Annette to a merchant from Adrestia to find a concealer that better matched his skin tone. Once with Mercedes to buy Annette a birthday gift. On occasion, he’d accompany Ingrid to find tea. 

But those, of course, aren’t the memories he intends to bury.

He wants to forget coming with Sylvain. 

He wants to forget visiting a vendor with Sylvain and commenting on a nice pair of fingerless leather gloves only to receive them as a gift from him a week later. He wants to forget accompanying him to purchase lotion, and he wants to forget the full-body massage that came afterward. He wants to forget the lubricant that he came and bought on his alone time, anticipating intercourse, and he wants to forget the way that vial still sits in his abandoned dorm room.

No—he doesn’t just want to forget coming with Sylvain. He wants to forget Sylvain entirely. 

His hand snakes around the hilt of his sword as he forces himself to delve deeper into the monastery. Remembering now of all times will do him no good; he isn’t here to reminisce. He’s here to kill. He’s here to put even more distance between himself and the person he once was. 

The monastery feels strange in its emptiness. The place had once bustled with life and laughter and love, after all. Every location brings about a bundle of memories, and Felix bites his tongue until it bleeds simply to have something else to focus on. 

He cannot find the bandits on the central campus, so he makes his way across the bridge over to the chapel. To the Goddess Tower. To the place where he’d had his first—and pretty much _only_—sexual encounter with Sylvain before they had been separated. That memory lunges on him unexpectedly, and he hasn’t the willpower to fight it back. 

Just as he is preparing to scout the Goddess Tower, the flap of wings forces his head to turn toward the chapel’s entrance. Pegasus wings, more specifically, and a gentle _clack_ of hooves once the beast lands. “Felix!” Ingrid shouts, bursting inside. She practically leaps into his arms once see reaches him, and he stumbles slightly. “Felix, what is wrong with you? You—so suddenly—you disappeared without even a warning, Felix—”

“Why are you here?” he snaps, tone lacking sympathy. He does not want to see her. He has no reason to anymore. Now that he has renounced his family name, he isn’t even a prospective marriage candidate. “Go home, Ingrid.”

“Felix, please,” she says, still pressed to him. “Please. I am the one who directed the Count of Charon to send you here.”

He grits his teeth at the confession and shoves her roughly. She loses her balance and ends up sprawled on the floor for only a moment before scrambling to grasp at his ankle, a frail attempt at holding him down. “Felix, Dimitri and the professor are alive. They came back to us. They are going to kill the Adrestian emperor and end this convoluted war—”

“That has nothing to do with me,” Felix replies, kicking her arm away. “I’m not loyal to the Kingdom. I’m a fucking mercenary with no ties—”

Ingrid stands abruptly and, with brute strength, slaps a hand sharply against his cheek. He accepts it, if only out of shock. “Felix, grow up,” she bursts, suddenly angrier than Felix had ever seen her. “I did not want to say this, but you have had more than enough time to grieve and better yourself. I know not why Rodrigue allowed you to leave and…and do whatever it is you’ve been doing, but allowing you to follow your own path is clearly not working. You must face the facts—Sylvain is either dead, or he has forgotten you. You cannot allow yourself to fall into an endless pit of despair because of this.”

Felix clenches his fists, nails digging into his palms, and opens his mouth to retort, but his tongue refuses to cooperate. He stands like a fool for a moment, mouth agape, before turning his gaze to the floor in submission.

He _has_ been immature. That is the only word he can think of to describe his actions up until this point. What had happened to the strength and sturdiness he swore to bear after Glenn’s passing? What happened to his promise to protect those he loved? Why had he distanced himself from them instead of attempting to ensure their safety?

His actions were…beyond selfish. They benefitted no one. Not his family, his friends, or even himself. He’d tricked himself into believing that this future, a future where he had nothing to lose, was what he had always wanted—in truth, having nothing to lose means there is also nothing to gain. It means that progress is impossible; pointless. 

He had made his life some pointless, fruitless…_game_.

“If you claim to be a mercenary, then I will hire you,” she continues, digging a leather coin purse from beneath her armor. “I only wish for you to return to us, Felix. I care not how much gold it costs. I wish to see your life force restored. I want to see you happy once more.”

Felix stands lamely for a moment, knowing not how to respond to anything she has said or done thus far. Ingrid, older only by a month, had somehow become a full-fledged woman. A mature, selfless, kind woman. A big sister in lieu of his lost brother. 

He has no words that could possibly describe how grateful he is, so he states plainly, “I don’t need your gold. I’ll do it.”

* * *

When he is reunited with the other Blue Lions, he is shocked to feel only warm embraces and unending patience. Relief from a few who had believed him to be dead, and happiness from those who had missed him dearly.

Thankfully, there is little time for mushy emotions as they are thrust into a grand mission—one that even his father accompanies them on. 

Rodrigue. Felix hadn’t seen or heard of him in about a year, and he isn’t sure whether he should thank his father for allowing him to take that solitary journey or apologize for acting so insufferable for such an extended amount of time. 

It’s late into the night when Felix finally encounters Rodrigue alone, resting in the middle of their temporary campsite, polishing a sword. Illuminated only by the embers of that night’s campfire, Felix approaches his father.

“Felix,” Rodrigue acknowledges with a stout nod. “How nice of you to join me.”

“I’ll make this quick,” Felix replies softly. “I was wrong. You’re not the worst father out there. I was immature and stupid—”

“That was years ago, Felix. You need not apologize for words stated when you were clearly not in your right mind.” After a brief pause and a light smile, “Though I do appreciate you mustering up the courage to say this.”

Felix bites his inner cheek and nods in response. “Well, then—”

“Do not leave just yet. I’ve not finished berating myself.” After a slight pause, “You were not right of mind, but you were absolutely right about me. I forced you and Glenn both to believe in my definition of chivalry, so much so that Glenn gave his life for that of someone he knew so little of. I know you disbelieve this, but I have always loved you both very much. You are my son; just because you did not become a knight at fifteen years of age does not make you any less of a son than Glenn was.”

Felix doesn’t wish to hear this. He’s never liked the sentimentality that comes with speaking seriously to his father; it’s an emotion that makes him wish to cower and hide himself from the world. Yet here he stands, under his father’s apprehensive gaze, listening intently.

“Do not think your efforts went unnoticed. I saw you practicing magic behind my back, even though I so fiercely refused to teach it to you myself. I see that scar that you wield; it reminds me each time I see it that I was…lacking as a parent. But it also reminds me that you put in far more effort than you are willing to admit to make me proud. That you are admirable in your own right.”

Felix feels the muscles of his jaw tighten as he listens. These are the words he had always wanted to hear as a child; the words he had so desperately attempted to convince himself were unnecessary and unwanted. But, deep down, beneath his false layers of uncaring and hostility, he had always longed to be outwardly loved by his father.

“Once this war ends,” Rodrigue continues, “I am sure Dimitri will take the throne and make Fódlan into a better place. When that time comes, then I will renounce my position as Duke and allow you to inherit it. I wish to see how you would better rule in my place. I wish to bear witness to the birth of my grandchildren and see what it means to truly love.”

Felix snorts, holding back a laugh, and realizes that it may be the first time in years that he has cracked a smile. “That won’t happen, old man. I’d burn the damn duchy to the ground before taking your spot.”

Rodrigue, too, allows a smile to grace his lips and, for the first time in a long time, all is right with the world.

* * *

And then, for the first time in not-so-long, all is wrong with the world.

The army is at Gronder Field, a place yet again filled with bittersweet memories, but that is not what shatters Felix’s resolve. What destroys him is seeing, on the back of a familiar brown wyvern, that glistening head of red hair. His garb is golden and matches that of the army he now supports.

He is far away, attention focused on the Adrestian army, but he is all Felix can see. Even when a stray arrow buzzes by his head, he can concentrate on nothing else. His knees feel fit to buckle; his fingers tremble around the hilt of his sword. 

Sylvain is alive and well and supporting Leicester.

Felix’s heart, having been painstakingly stitched back together over the past five years, absolutely disintegrates at the sight. With what little control he has over his body, he rushes into the fray, seeking Sylvain. Seeking an explanation.

In retrospect, his compulsive actions are dangerous to both himself and his army. He’s deft enough to dodge most attacks while still veering south, toward that redheaded, lance-wielding, wyvern riding _bastard_, but the army he leaves behind struggles to clear the field. Even Ingrid stays behind to help as Felix, alone and seemingly vulnerable, ventures ever deeper into the battle.

Closer. He can see the glint of Sylvain’s armor under the sunlight; gold looks rather good on him. If it didn’t symbolize betrayal, Felix thinks he might like to see Sylvain wearing that color more often. Or he _would_ if things were not so…torturous. If their relationship were still salvageable. 

Closer. Another gleam, a different one, catches Felix’s eye, and it nearly distracts him enough to get stabbed. Nearly—he deflects a jab from an Adrestian knight and returns the favor with a slash of his own before returning his focus to that foreign glimmer. Armor? No, armor is not worn in such a way, scarcely covering the legs.

Closer. The metal around his legs definitely isn’t armor. Too flimsy. Too flexible, bending easily with the flier’s every whim. 

Felix’s heart leaps to his throat; he’s nearly there, and he has a terrible feeling he knows exactly what it is that lines Sylvain’s legs. 

Just a tad closer—

His attention had been far too focused on Sylvain, it seems, because a stray arrow from a distant ballistae pierces through his dominant arm. In agony, he cries out and drops his sword, immediately clutching at the wound. The arrow hit bone, he can feel it, and lack of focus sends him tumbling to the ground, nearly landing on the sharp end of his blade.

He rolls into brush, hand still clinging to the arrow, and rips it free from his arm with a loud curse. The wound is deep and most certainly hit a nerve; he cannot feel the entire length of his arm. He’s too far from the others to request help, and he’s deep in enemy territory.

Angry, blatantly so, he attempts to cast Heal on himself only for the scar of Thoron to blaze severely. White magic is not intended to be used on oneself, but this is an emergency. He needs this arm. He needs to return to the fray, to fight off the Adrestian army before they can hurt Sylvain—

And it’s then that he realizes that he is still irrevocably enamored. 

Although Sylvain is supporting Leicester; although he disappeared wordlessly for five years; although he swore to return to Faerghus safely but never did; through thick and thin, Felix has loved him, and he has never stopped loving him.

The realization, the acceptance, sends a surge of vigor through his veins and he forces himself to rise despite his numb, bleeding right arm. However, just as he’s about to recklessly reenter the battle, a gentle hand clings to his shoulder and the placid sting of white magic flows through his body. When he turns to see who had aided him, he’s met with Marianne’s pacific brown gaze. She simply nods before disappearing into the trees.

Leicester is not against Faerghus. 

It’s reassuring as all hell, and Felix rushes from his perch with renewed vitality, arm fully healed and grasping the hilt of his blade. Very few Adrestian soldiers remain and, he notices that Sylvain has landed.

That’s how their eyes meet for the first time in five years.

Felix freezes, immediately unsure and unable and unsteady all at once. There are so many questions flooding through his head and he’s suddenly uncertain about wanting to hear answers. 

Five years. 

Five years he has waited, mourned, questioned, and pleaded. 

Five exasperating years, over in the blink of an eye.

The world that had been so desolate, so pointless and bleak, is suddenly vibrant and vivid and colorful. It’s such a startling change that Felix can do nothing but stand and take in Sylvain; he hates to admit it after so many months of trying to forget—trying to force himself to be angry and bear hatred—but he had missed him.

Sylvain is the first to act, tossing Mick’s reins and swinging both legs over to her right side. When he leaps from her back, he lacks grace and he immediately falls face-first into the dirt.

It doesn’t deter him. He rises, adjusts something on the metal lining his legs, and _sprints_ toward Felix. When they meet, it’s nothing like Felix had imagined, but it’s perfect nonetheless. 

Sylvain body slams him, and he barely manages to keep his footing against such an outstanding force. His arms wander all over Felix’s body; across his arms, his back, his sides, and roam up to his hair, as if ensuring that he isn’t an apparition. “Gods,” Sylvain whispers, nothing short of an exhale, and his voice is shaky. “You made it home.”

Felix had been standing still the entire time, allowing himself to be touched, but hearing Sylvain’s voice breaks his resolve and he buries his face into his shoulder. It’s been ages, but he’s still warm, still bears his own familiar scent under all of that mud and armor and blood. When Felix threads his fingers through his hair, it feels the same, too, albeit shorter.

The world around them may have crumbled and been destroyed as a result of the war, but Sylvain has remained constant.

It’s as though they’re in their own little bubble as the war resumes around them. Felix’s five senses are consumed by Sylvain; his thoughts are flooded with questions and reprimands and comments, but all that comes out of his mouth are statements of relief. “I thought you were dead,” he chokes. “You’re okay. I’m glad.”

“I promised,” Sylvain responds, as though that answers all of the questions in the world. “I promised, and I never break a promise.”

At that moment, Adrestia could win the damn battle and conquer Fódlan for all Felix cares. All that matters to him is Sylvain’s gentle embrace, his quiet voice, and his overwhelming warmth. “I love you,” Felix says abruptly, as though afraid he may never have the chance to again, and he feels Sylvain’s hug tighten around him in response.

He’s confessed. He’s finally released this pressure on his chest, finally admitted to having feelings that he swore he would never accept, and it’s the best feeling he’s ever experienced. He repeats the phrase over and over, a mantra of sorts, until he feels Sylvain’s tense shoulders relax under his touch.

Sylvain doesn’t respond for a time, simply embracing Felix. “I’m sorry,” he finally replies. “I’m sorry for making you leave me behind. For never showing up like I promised. For never even writing a letter, or sending a messenger, or—”

“I love you,” Felix interrupts, uninterested in excuses. 

And before Sylvain can reply, the battlefield erupts in cheers and the two separate anxiously, glancing about. Soldiers are throwing their weapons down, removing their bloodied armor, and hugging their companions. 

Sylvain tugs on his arm, drawing his attention back, and points at a figure standing on Gronder’s central hill. Byleth; she lifts her sword for only a moment, demanding attention without so much as opening her mouth, before switching arms and revealing the gleaming gold that could only belong to Edelgard’s headpiece.

Just like that, it’s all over. 

Five years of war and devastation over in one battle. 

Still, all Felix cares about is the redhead just within arm’s reach. 

He had been bitter for so long; bitter and afraid and, ultimately, infuriated. He had assumed the worst—that Sylvain had been taken prisoner, or been killed, or chosen to forget about all of the people and places that defined his past. 

But none of that matters when Sylvain turns to him, an enormous smile plastered across his face, and he takes Felix’s cheeks into his hands. “I love you,” he finally responds. 

Felix is the one to close the distance between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for the support and for reading this far! See you tomorrow!


	9. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains **explicit sexual content**. Enjoy!

Just because the war has ended does not mean things will return to normal immediately. There is much to do; many villages need rebuilding, corpses need to be buried, crops need to be replanted—the list seems to never end. This is especially true for the Faerghus nobility who, after aiding King Dimitri in his war efforts, are held at higher esteem than the nobility of both Leicester and Adrestia by the commoners.

Felix is not exempt from the hard work but having Sylvain by his side once more makes things move more smoothly. Felix works more on the physical aspects of the rebuilding effort, especially near the Myrddin Bridge, where damages had been vast. Sylvain, on the other hand, is stuck in a room in Derdriu working on paperwork and other clerical work. 

The first night they’re reunited is far from what Felix had imagined it would be.

He always imagined that they would reunite and either kill one another or have fervent sex. As they sit by a campfire in a Derdriu motel, resting after a long day’s work, Felix almost believes that they might just end up together in bed. But that isn’t what he wants most. He would much rather hold Sylvain tight, embrace him for hours to make up for the five years they’d been without one another.

Felix makes tea to hide his trembling fingers. He’s anxious, more than he’s been in quite some time, and the menial task helps his mind focus on something other than the man in the room.

“I missed you like crazy,” Sylvain says after receiving a cup. “I know you’re probably mad and have tons of questions, so…go ahead.”

Felix sits across from him and gazes intently at the fire for a moment, then turns his head slightly so that their eyes meet. He isn’t angry anymore—he’s starting to wonder if he’d ever been angry to begin with. His feelings during those five years had been so complicated and enigmatic that he simply could have been going through an extended period of grief. 

Yes, that must be it, because glancing at Sylvain now only swells his chest with adoration. There is no trace of rage or frustration or sadness. All Felix is capable of feeling at the moment is relief. Sylvain is okay, and he hasn’t chosen to forget Felix, and those two simple things make him happier than he probably ought to be.

“What happened that day?” Felix finally asks, slow and cautious. He isn’t sure if he truly wants to know. He doesn’t want to hear a gore-riddled tale of Sylvain’s survival on the battlefield. “After I took Mick.”

Sylvain hums in thought, eyes averted once more. “I waited. I really did think I was gonna die, you know? I waited for someone to find me and put me out of my misery but…Claude found me, and he rushed Marianne over. Come to think of it, he was probably right on time. My vision was starting to go white when he was bending over my body, and I thought Marianne was an angel. She was weak—she’d been healing all day, I guess—but she did just enough to stop the bleeding.” 

“And….” Felix can hardly utter the next question. _Your legs?_

Sylvain nods as though he can read Felix’s thoughts. “Yeah, the spear went deep enough to hit my spine. I guess just touching was enough to, uh—” 

He pauses, brows furrowing as if the recollection pains him.

“I lost feeling in my legs for a while. It took a lot of effort, and I’m gonna owe Claude and Lysithea and Marianne for the rest of my life for all the work they put in just so I could get walking again. Lysithea did tons of research and designed the braces,” he explains, kicking out his legs like a child showing off a new pair of shoes. “Marianne was in charge of my physical therapy. And Claude let me stay at his place.”

Felix, holding his breath, reaches out and touches the cool metal of the braces. He isn’t sure how to feel at the moment. Should he be happy that Sylvain recovered? Grateful to the Leicester nobility for aiding him? Displeased that any of this happened to begin with?

“I can walk without them, you know,” Sylvain continues, nearly bragging. “But I don’t really trust myself on the battlefield without them. Not yet. It’s like…relearning how to walk. That’s how I’d describe it. I can do the walking part just fine, but things like running and kneeling are still rough.”

“Can you feel them?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. Lysithea said I was super lucky that it was only temporary. Said it was a miracle from the goddess.” He pauses, countenance growing gloomy. “That’s why I didn’t go back. I probably could have, but I just…didn’t want you to see me like that. I knew you’d think it was your fault when it definitely wasn’t.”

“I…,” Felix starts, but Sylvain is right. He would have been tormented with guilt at seeing Sylvain in such a condition. And nobody in the Fraldarius household would have been able to nurse him back to health the way Marianne did. Felix owes her—and the others of course—for being so patient with Sylvain. For taking in someone who wasn’t of the Golden Deer house or of their region.

“That’s pretty much it,” Sylvain finishes, lowering his teacup onto the center table. “I regained feeling in my legs almost a year and half after the invasion, and I got therapy for the rest of the time. It’s a little embarrassing to say, but that battle at Gronder was the real first thing I did in ages. I was stuck in the Riegan mansion the rest of the time—it was nice, don’t get me wrong, but when you’re stuck in somewhere all day for literal _years_, even if it’s a mansion with good food and nice décor, you start going a little crazy.”

That must have been why he was so disbelieving when they had first reunited on the battlefield. Why his hands reached and groped; he needed to feel that Felix was truly there and not some hallucination. “So you didn’t forget me,” he whispers almost subconsciously, and the tips of his ears burn when he realizes that he had said that aloud. 

“Of course not, Felix,” Sylvain replies naturally, leaning back into the cushions of his seat with a gentle smile. “Man, I _dreamed_ of you. It got to the point where I’d rather be asleep just so I could see your face.” He laughs a bit, and Felix feels extremely warm upon hearing the familiar sound alongside that confession. “You have no idea what I did to you in those dreams. Gods.”

“Really?” Felix snickers, and he leans forward a bit in interest. “Entertain me.”

“Nah, I’d rather show you,” Sylvain replies sassily. “Later, though. For now, I want to hear about you. What did you do for the past five years?”

Though he isn’t proud of it and he certainly wouldn’t like to relive it, Felix tells Sylvain of the miserable life he led. Of his time grieving. Of his time killing. Of his time traveling and taking up odd jobs as a mercenary. Of his time trying desperately to forget. Saying it aloud makes it feel like less of a nightmare and more of a funny story, though, and he tries as he might to make the tale lighthearted.

Once he finishes, he’s met with silence on Sylvain’s end. The redhead ponders for a few long minutes, eyes dancing under the light of the flame, and Felix is unsure if he should speak up. “I’m sorry,” he finally says. “That must’ve been so hard for you. I was supposed to be there to help you through things, but I only made things worse. It’s my fault—”

“No. Shut up,” Felix snaps. “I don’t want to play the blame game. What happened is in the past now.” He tosses his own teacup onto the table. “All that matters now is that you don’t do something stupid like that ever again.” Voice diminishing to a whisper, he concludes with, “Don’t leave me again.”

Sylvain simply stares at him for a moment. “Gods, Felix, come here,” he says, smile plastered across his face, and he stands slowly, as though the action proves difficult. He spreads his arms wide, still smiling like a damn fool. When Felix rises from his seat and embraces him without hesitation, he squeezes him with enough force to draw the air from his lungs. 

“Gods, Sylvain, you fucking asshole,” he mutters, voice quivering slightly as he restrains his tears. He can’t comprehend why he’s crying but it truly doesn’t matter. Not when the person he loves most is finally where he belongs, in his arms. “I love you.”

When Sylvain pulls away slightly in an effort to kiss him, it’s nothing like the kisses they shared at Garreg Mach or even the vehement kiss at Gronder. It’s chaste and short but holds more passion than any other touch they’ve shared thus far. Felix feels his heart palpitate hard against his ribcage when Sylvain draws away, pecking kisses against his eyelids and down his cheeks.

“Why are you comforting me?” he asks, eyes closed, and he feels Sylvain breathe softly against his cheek as he chuckles.

“Because you’re crying,” he murmurs, and they fall back onto the cushions. “Why’re you crying? It’s all gonna be okay now.”

“That’s why, you dumbass,” Felix exhales, wrapping his fingers around Sylvain’s shirt. “You’re here and it’s all okay. I’m just…happy.”

Sylvain holds his head against his chest until he calms, and Felix is lulled by the gentle flicker of the fireplace. He falls asleep. When he does, he is no longer plagued by nightmares, and when he wakes, he is greeted by Sylvain’s snoring. 

It’s everything he’d ever wanted and more.

* * *

Derdriu is beautiful, even when the sun has all but set and its streets are illuminated by nothing more than the full moon overhead. It smells of the ocean—not the most flattering scent in reality, but blissful in comparison to the stench of blood and mutilated bodies on the battlefield—and the boats that line the pier bob up and down as the waves lap at the shore. 

Sylvain runs—well, as best as he can run, anyhow—through those gentle waves, kicking the seawater with his bare feet, laughing the way Felix recalls he once did as a child. “See?” he calls, not too loudly, and Felix can see the gleam of his teeth under the starlight. “I told you I could move around without the braces.”

It’s still relatively cold, especially with the sea breeze ruffling through Felix’s hair and somehow finding its way beneath his thin layers, so he worries for a moment that Sylvain might get sick. “That’s great,” he states and, though his voice lacks enthusiasm, he truly does think seeing Sylvain running around might be the best thing he’s seen all year. 

That is until one of his knees give way and he lands face-first in the sand.

Felix rushes over, concerned, and kneels beside him to help him up. “Gods, you’re so—” He hasn’t the time to finish his comment before Sylvain has grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the moist sand beside him. “Sylvain,” Felix hisses, but he doesn’t move. Sure, his clothes may be wet, and he may wake with a cold by tomorrow morning, but at this moment, he couldn’t care less.

He’s with Sylvain. Everything is okay. Better than okay.

“Move in with me,” Sylvain says suddenly, and the request is entirely unexpected. They’d been living together more or less already, since the restoration effort has been taking far longer in Leicester than expected. The motel where they’ve been staying has started to feel like home.

“Move in?” Felix replies slowly, allowing the words to drip off of his tongue unceremoniously. “Like, to the Gautier estate?”

“No,” Sylvain says, shaking his head and causing sand to flutter up into the air. “I want to move out here. Derdriu is gorgeous and has tons of taverns and plenty of shops—I don’t think I’d ever get bored of coming to the beach with you.”

Felix can feel heat rise to his face at the proposition. “So you’re asking me to leave Faerghus and everyone I know…to move here with you.”

“Hey, there’s no separation anymore, right?” Sylvain counters. “There’s no Faerghus or Leicester of Adrestia anymore. We’re all just one big Fódlan now.”

“Still, Sylvain, it’s not like we can just up and leave our territories—”

“Felix,” Sylvain interrupts, rolling onto his stomach and taking one of Felix’s hands into his own. “We just went through war. We just destroyed an age-old empire. I think we could definitely take on a couple of family traditions.”

“How optimistic,” Felix replies sourly. “It’s different. We’re descendants of—”

“Felix, listen to me for a second. What I’m saying is that I’m willing to screw over my father and Faerghus’s old, outdated ideas of nobility and just…elope, I guess.” He pauses for a moment, pondering over his words, and then bursts into a smile again. “Yeah, I like the sound of that. Elope with me, Felix.”

It’s so sudden and childish and selfish but Felix nods before he can truly consider everything and he sits up. All he knows for certain is that he loves Sylvain more than enough to do this much. “No, this is a terrible idea,” he murmurs, but his head keeps on nodding, and Sylvain chuckles in the low light at his obvious conflict. “It’s stupid but…I want it.”

Sylvain pulls himself up just enough to brush his lips against the underside of Felix’s jaw. “I want this, too. More than anything.”

“You know we skipped a whole step.” At Sylvain’s obvious confusion, “We skipped dating, Sylvain. You’re asking me to marry you before we’ve even gone out.”

“We weren’t going out?”

Felix can’t help but to smile. It doesn’t matter if they’d been dating through those terrible five years or not because they’re together now, closer than Felix has ever been to any other living being, and Felix has no doubts in his mind that this is the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with. 

“We can move further inland if you want,” Sylvain offers, slipping a sand-covered hand up to cup Felix’s cheek. Felix leans into the touch and stares down at Sylvain through half-lidded eyes. There’s really nothing else he’d rather be doing than sitting here, indulging this man. “We can raise a bunch of wyverns, like sixty of them, and set them loose if anyone ever fucks with us.”

“Or we could _not_ do that.”

“Okay, fine. Cats? We could probably take a few dozen cats from the monastery to start our collection. They’re probably still there—those things could probably live through a damn apocalypse—"

“Do me a favor,” Felix offers instead, and Sylvain is all ears. “Sit up.” Questioningly, he obeys, and Felix silences his immature hypotheticals with a kiss. “Stop talking and kiss me.”

“Yessir.”

* * *

On their final scheduled night in Derdriu, Felix fills a small basin with warm water and leaves it beside the bed. It would likely be cold by the time he intended to use it, but he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t have the attention span to mind—his mind is racing and his hands are shaking. 

He’d gone shopping earlier in the day, while Sylvain was still asleep with an arm curled around a pillow that was made to mimic the shape and feel of Felix’s body as he made his escape. He had to visit quite a few shops and endure more than a handful of confused glances, but he managed to purchase everything that he needed.

Or so he thinks. He isn’t an expert and he was too shy to ask around. What would he ask, anyway? _Hey, I want to surprise my lover tonight, but we’ve never actually made love so—_ No, he’d much rather be humiliated in front of Sylvain, kind and forgiving, than a crowd of strangers in a shopping district.

Sylvain hasn’t come up from the bathhouse yet when Felix finds himself organizing his purchases. He’d bought plenty lotions and creams and at least six different vials of scented oils, but he isn’t sure if Sylvain would want to dive right in and forgo prep altogether.

He isn’t prepared, that’s for certain. The last time he’d bottomed was early in his mercenary career, and that was already almost two years ago. 

He airs on the side of caution and decides to prep himself. After all, he had witnessed how hungry Sylvain could get—their experience at the Goddess Tower is more than an adequate reminder of the fact. 

It’s strange to say the least, to lie on his back in a foreign room and squeeze an oil-lubed finger into himself. At first, the action is odd and Felix feels humiliated, lying in such a position with his legs spread and knees high. But, as he prods deeper into himself, the pleasure of it outweighs the strangeness. 

He gets lost in the feel of his own fingers, especially when he imagines that they’re Sylvain’s and not his own. The vivid image of Sylvain lying behind him, holding him up, and pressing his own calloused fingers into Felix’s depths—it’s nearly enough to make him peak.

Instead, he’s startled by the slow creak of the door opening. He’d expected Sylvain to return, expected to be caught in the act, but it’s still a demeaning experience. “So, Felix—oh.”

Felix, covering his mouth with the back of his hand, allows his arm to fall away and he stifles a grin. Sylvain’s face is worth every ounce of humiliation. “Sylvain,” he replies as coolly as he can muster, which is, admittedly, not at all. His voice is gruff with arousal and he can feel his chest rise and fall with each erotic pant.

“Should I go?” Sylvain offers, eyes never once leaving Felix’s hand, three fingers still very much lost inside of himself. 

“Obviously not.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, a deep red flush blossoms upon Sylvain’s cheeks and he grins. “Gods, Felix, I love you so much.”

And, damn, do the words affect Felix. Completely nude and on display for the world—for _his_ world—to see, his cock twitches. Sylvain watches, his own smile growing by the second, and Felix removes his fingers to give Sylvain something else to look at.

Needless to say, Sylvain falls flat on his face _again_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate leaving y'all on a cliffhanger so next chapter will be uploaded in 12 hours instead of the usual 24. 
> 
> Also, yes, this chapter was released 12 hours ahead of schedule; I got a little too excited writing ;v;
> 
> Thanks for sticking around, and I hope these last two chapters make up for the angst!


	10. Like New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this chapter contains **explicit sexual content**. Enjoy!

Sylvain’s fingers are both exactly like what Felix had imagined them to be and _nothing_ like what he imagined. On the one hand, he’s warm and gentle and slightly calloused; on the other hand, he’s _warm_ and _gentle_ and _calloused_ in ways that Felix could never have fantasized on his own. 

He squirms a bit when Sylvain’s fingers flex inside of him, reaching far but not quite hitting his deepest crevices. “Deeper—_ah_—” Another finger bends and he’s being stretched in ways he’s never tried on himself. He can feel the light scrape of Sylvain’s fingernails against his inner walls and he shudders at the delightful grate.

“Gods, Felix,” Sylvain whispers, breath tickling Felix’s cheek. “You’re a lot…dirtier than I remember.” He thrusts all three fingers in deep without warning and Felix arches his back, hissing slightly. “I mean, I remember you being a bit of a masochist, but—”

“Less talk, more fuck,” Felix mumbles, words slurring slightly in his daze. 

Sylvain continues to stretch him for a little too long, intentionally teasing Felix with provocative prods against his prostate, before extracting his fingers. Felix feels hollow and cold without them there, and he fails to restrain a whimper of complaint. “Patience,” is all Sylvain replies while fumbling with the vial of oil.

Watching Sylvain lubricate himself is a show in and of itself. Sure, Felix had seen his cock once at the Goddess Tower, but it was dark and he could hardly make out the silhouette of it. But here, illuminated by multiple candles plus the fire crackling away in the fireplace, Felix can see every inch of it; every vein, every twitch, every pearl of precum that emerges from its bright tip as Sylvain prepares himself.

He doesn’t realize he’d been staring until Sylvain laughs. “Like what you see? Maybe I should just do this all night.”

“Don’t mess around,” Felix replies, and he spreads his legs an inch or so for effect. “There’s no way you would leave me like this.”

When Sylvain next crawls onto the sheets, he doesn’t immediately pound Felix into the mattress like the shorter wishes he would. Instead, he takes Felix’s leg and kisses down its length, pausing for a great deal of time to press rough bites into his inner thighs. It should hurt, it _does_ hurt, but it also feels _fucking great._

“Y-Yeah,” Felix grunts, pressing the back of his wrist against his lips to stifle himself. “More of that.”

Sylvain laughs again and Felix is sure he’ll never tire of that sound. “More biting? I thought you wanted me to focus here.” His thumb gently prods against Felix’s entrance and, already reaching his limits of acceptable stimulation, he feels himself drip languidly onto his own stomach.

“Just do it,” Felix whispers, tone steadily escalating into a whine. 

“What was that?”

“Fuck me, Sylvain. Please.”

And he does. He’s gentle at first, inserting himself inch by inch, always asking if Felix feels comfortable or if he’s in pain. But, once he’s hit his own limit, he starts thrusting at a slow pace. It feels odd at first, to be stretched and shaken, but as Felix grows accustomed to the sensation, he realizes that it feels pretty damn good. 

“Harder,” he groans, and Sylvain obliges, drawing himself almost all the way out only to slam his hips back down into Felix’s. Felix holds back a loud moan by biting his arm, but his rigid member defies him by dripping more beads of glistening precum onto his abdomen. 

When he reaches to relieve that pressure that had been building in his core, Sylvain pushes his hand away and touches him in tandem to the rhythm of his own thrusts. To be touched from both sides like this is exhilarating to the point where Felix can no longer restrain himself; both arms fly to his sides and he rolls his hips, seeking Sylvain’s, and allows his voice to escape his lips and echo throughout the room.

When he does come, he’s rather proud of himself for having lasted so long. He had expected to come almost immediately, especially after having been abstinent for almost a year, but he and Sylvain orgasm nearly in tandem, erupting in simultaneous white streaks against Felix’s pale stomach.

Sylvain, beads of sweat lining his forehead, leans over Felix and plants heavy kisses against his jawline. “Gods, I love you,” he murmurs, pulling away to get a better look. 

Felix can only imagine how he must look, with his hair splayed over the pillows and his limbs spread haphazardly across the sheets, but he can’t find the state of mind to care. All he can think of is Sylvain.

“Let me clean you up,” Sylvain says, already making to stand, but Felix claps a palm to his wrist to keep him from leaving.

“Basin,” he croaks, profoundly aware of the way his voice sounds. “Other side of the bed.”

Sylvain looks a touch surprised at first before smiling gently and falling back onto the mattress, beside his lover. “You look great,” he says, and Felix is annoyed at how composed he sounds.

“You look like shit,” he replies, but his voice lacks bite, and he turns his head to kiss Sylvain’s shoulder. “Hurry and wash me up.”

Sylvain does, and Felix is unsure whether he enjoys the sex or the aftercare more. Sylvain wipes him down with a moist washcloth, leaving trails of kisses in its wake, and goes so far as to massage an oil, a rosy scent, into the skin of his abdomen. “I adore you,” he mumbles as he presses circles into Felix’s hips with his thumbs. 

“I hadn’t noticed,” Felix chides, and it feels so right. Being here in Derdriu, doing as they please, without a care in the world. Joking with the man he loves most while his fingers press gently into his muscles. Felix doesn’t want to leave. That insane proposal, that offer to leave everything behind and just go, feels more and more appetizing by the second.

But Felix has run away from his duties and his responsibilities for far too long. He’d put off everything he was, everything that defined him, for years, and he isn’t sure if he could bear the guilt of leaving it all behind again. What Ingrid had said that day in the chapel, about him being a selfish bastard, has stuck with him up to this point; it’s made him rethink everything that he did during Sylvain’s absence.

“I love you,” he mumbles almost inaudibly, but Sylvain catches the words and offers a small smile. “I love you so much, but I can’t do this.”

Sylvain’s face falls, ever slightly, before he plasters on another, different, forced grin. “Ah, well, I guess I should’ve expected it. I’m a bit rusty in bed. Haven’t used my legs properly in ages.”

“It isn’t that,” Felix replies, and he’s annoyed that Sylvain would choose now of all times to joke around. “I want you to wait for me here.” He doesn’t explain further to Sylvain, knowing that what he aims to do would entirely go against what Sylvain had planned.

“That’s…,” and Felix is entirely unsure what Sylvain might say. “I’ll do it, of course,” he concludes. “I made you wait five years without warning. It’s the least I could do. But…will you actually come back?”

“I promise,” Felix replies without hesitation. 

Sylvain takes a few breaths, as if stabilizing himself, before nodding back. “Okay. Just a bit longer, I guess.”

“Just a bit longer.”

* * *

He hasn’t visited his home in what feels like forever, so walking up the stone steps to the monumental front doors of the Fraldarius manor is almost intimidating. However, as expected, his father is waiting just outside, downing a cup of tea and staring off into the horizon. 

Felix gulps as he approaches. He had informed his father of his arrival, even planned out what he would petition, but the words simply would not come now. Not when Rodrigue turns to him, smiles, and automatically begins pouring him a cup of brew. 

“Take a seat, Felix.”

He does, and he feels a bit like a child who has just been scolded as he stares at his lap. Rodrigue doesn’t pry, and he takes a deep breath as he formulates what he wants to say. 

“I don’t want to become the duke,” he blurts, and it isn’t at all the way he had intended to break the news, but it definitely summarizes his thoughts. 

Rodrigue hardly bats an eye. “I know, son. I wouldn’t dare force you to.”

Felix _does_ bat an eye, multiple times, and then furrows his brows. “Then what happens to House Fraldarius?”

“I suppose the same thing that will happen to House Gautier and House Galatea.” He pauses and Felix wants to shout at him to continue. “King Dimitri has enforced a new regime, in remembrance of the path Emperor Edelgard had strived for. In her honor, I suppose. The king seeks to minimize the authority Crest-bearers have in society. Already, many of the noble houses in Adrestia have relinquished their positions. Leicester will soon follow suit, and then those of us in Faerghus.” He pauses, taking a sip of his tea. “Though I suppose I should simply say the south, east, and north; we are all unified under the name of Fódlan now, after all.”

Felix takes in the information. He’d been so focused on the restoration effort in former-Leicester that he hadn’t heard a single thing about Dimitri’s new system. “That means…,” he starts, slow but thrilled. It means he won’t have to worry about birthing an heir or taking over the duchy or any of the stupid things being an heir entails. He could live out the rest of his days peacefully on the countryside with Sylvain. With that stupid wyvern farm that he would surely attempt to start.

“It means you may go,” Rodrigue says with a nod, and he grins gently upon granting Felix his blessing. “Though it does sadden me that you will not bear me any grandchildren.”

Felix, overjoyed, has little to say now. He does respectfully finish his tea while listening to his father ramble on about wanting descendants, but his mind is elsewhere the entire time.

He is as a bird who has been freed from its cage. The whole world is at his fingertips; he can do anything, go anywhere, and he can do it all with Sylvain. Countless possibilities lie before him.

All he wants to do is go back to Sylvain’s warm arms.

* * *

Leicester—now Eastern Fódlan, Felix supposes—is much warmer during the Red Wolf Moon than Felix could ever recall Northern Fódlan being. Even perched precariously close to the ocean, when the waves lap against the shore, the breeze is not fierce enough to send a chill down his spine. 

He supposes he has Ingrid to thank for that. She had asked Mercedes to tailor him a new coat and thick stockings for his move, and Annette had been more than overjoyed to send over a few baked goods—they were spoiled by the time they arrived, but Mick thoroughly enjoyed them.

Rodrigue, too, had shown his own form of support by providing Felix with the money to purchase their new abode. “An early inheritance,” he had called it, and he refused to listen when Felix quarreled against it. “It is the very least I can do for my son.”

Even Dimitri, who hadn’t talked directly to Felix in ages, sent a housewarming gift early on. Sylvain had lifted the ornate decoration—a very intricate golden lion with bright sapphire eyes—from its packaging and laughed. “Dimitri never was great with gifts,” he stated fondly. “Remember that dagger story?”

Felix had laughed. He had enjoyed the retelling of that tale, even when Sylvain stretched it so far from the truth that it became a different story altogether. He had laughed to the point of tears, and then he had curled up in Sylvain’s arms and fallen asleep.

He thinks life is good now. He wakes up and the gleam of the sunrise cresting over the waves of the northern sea catch his eyes, but nothing is better than seeing Sylvain lying next to him every morning. Each morning, that tuft of red hair, messy in all of its glory, reminds him of the trials that they had both faced and overcome simply to arrive at this conclusion.

He recalls all of the twists and turns life had wrought him through, all of the times he thought he might die of heartache, and he laughs a bit at how trivial it all seems now. Now that he and Sylvain have their own home on the seashore just north of Derdriu. It’s surreal. He could never have imagined ending up here.

A strong arm wraps around his waist and Sylvain pulls him close for a kiss. “It’s chilly,” he murmurs into Felix’s lips. “You’ll catch a cold.”

Felix allows himself to stare at Sylvain for a moment. To take in those deep brown eyes and that vibrant crimson hair. He had never really appreciated Sylvain for his looks, but he’s aging like fine wine, and Felix can’t help but be a bit jealous of the fact. “I won’t,” he finally replies, lips still millimeters from his lover’s, and he glances down at the short distance between them.

When Sylvain closes the gap, there’s nothing awkward or unnatural about it. It’s as though they had been crafted to meld into one. Felix had been concerned about Sylvain, or even himself, growing bored of monandry, but each kiss they share always feels different than the last, and the glisten of the golden band around Felix’s left ring finger always makes him remember how much he loves his partner.

He doesn’t doubt it anymore; there is no one in this world for him but Sylvain. That promise they had made as adolescents seems to have bound them in more ways than Felix could have ever expected. They would die together, he is now sure of it, because he could not bear live in a world without Sylvain, and he knows Sylvain feels much the same way.

Their lips part and Sylvain does as he always does; he licks the moisture from Felix’s upper lip. “Marianne and Lysithea are coming to adjust the braces,” he informs, eyes still directed downward at Felix’s swollen lips. “After that, we have the entire day to ourselves.”

Felix holds back a laugh. They have _every day_ to themselves now. “Okay,” he nods, lifting a hand to wipe a fleck of snow from Sylvain’s cheek. It hadn’t been snowing earlier; perhaps it truly is time to head inside.

As they enter, Sylvain brags about how this will be the last time he would need to get the braces adjusted and how, after this, he’d be able to run without them. “Not just walk,” he says excitedly. “Run! Like a little kid! I might even be able to swim by the time summer comes around.”

Felix listens intently, as he always does, while stoking the flames in the fireplace. “I thought you didn’t like swimming,” he remarks gently, joining Sylvain on the chaise.

“There’s a time for everything,” he counters, and he swoops an arm across Felix’s shoulders. “Plus, you do like swimming, so I need to get ready to join you.”

He pulls Felix closer and, obediently, Felix leans his head onto Sylvain’s shoulder. He is still as strong and sturdy as he was when they were academy students, and every bit as witty. “I never got to thank you,” he says suddenly, hand rising to rub against Sylvain’s chest. 

“For what?”

“For saving me.” He pauses, expecting Sylvain to ask a million questions, but the redhead waits for an explanation instead. “That day, when Glenn died…I remember it like it was yesterday. That day destroyed me, Sylvain. I probably would’ve—” He pauses, thoughts bitter. “I don’t know if I’d be here today if you didn’t go after me. If you didn’t comfort me and make that dumb promise. It was such a small act, but it meant everything to me. It gave me a reason to be alive.”

Sylvain pulls his fingers through Felix’s hair, listening, and Felix realizes that he doesn’t normally talk so much. Something about today has him sentimental and, with Sylvain being so patient and kind, it feels good to get these things off his chest.

“You did it twice, really. When Glenn died and…at Gronder. I was trying so hard to forget, but I couldn’t. Not without destroying a part of myself. So when you hugged me—I knew it was all going to be okay. I knew I didn’t need to forget anymore. You were back, and you’d help me through everything again.” He chuckles unwittingly. “It’s selfish, looking back, to depend on you like that…but, hell, I’ve always been a greedy bastard.”

Sometime during the rant, Sylvain had pulled him even tighter into his chest and started kissing the top of his head. “It’s not greedy, Felix,” he mumbles, words lost in Felix’s dark locks. “Life isn’t meant to be a big lonely race. Sometimes you need someone’s support. And don’t act like you haven’t helped me out a few times, too.”

“Really?”

“Of course! Both times involved Miklan. I always felt bad for him, even though he hated me, and it hurt when we had to—when he died. That stupid Lance is still somewhere in a dorm at the monastery, you know. It haunted me every night, just by looking at it. But then you started letting me sleep in your room, and the nightmares stopped, and I really thought everything would be okay if only you stayed by my side.” He pauses, pressing another sincere kiss into Felix’s scalp. “And I was right. Everything’s okay when you’re here.”

Felix feels fit to cry. Things turned out so well. He truly could not have asked for a better end to the war. “Thank you,” he repeats, allowing his eyes to flutter closed. His fingers curl around Sylvain’s jacket; Sylvain’s arm tightens comfortingly around his shoulders. “I made it through everything because of you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes.” 

It was as Ingrid had said, so long ago. _To love and lose is better than to never have loved at all._

“I love you,” he murmurs, and Sylvain repeats the phrase back. They remain seated that way, whispering affections to one another, and it may have been minutes or hours or even days and it would not have made a difference. Felix is right where he wants to be, right where he wishes to stay for the rest of his life.

All of the pain, the suffering, the loss; each and every struggle had lead up to this moment, this instance of perfect bliss. 

And Felix thinks that it had all been worthwhile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually going to be a 3+1 fic with a total of 4 chapters, but it got so much support from the start that decided to scrap that. (I might go back to that idea later. :>)
> 
> If you're interested in suggesting another fic idea, working together on something, etc. you can find me on Instagram and Twitter (**@xxystos** for both)! I am also available to beta read if that's something you need done. Just slide me a DM.
> 
> That's that! Thank you so much for reading up to the very end! It was quite the journey and I am so grateful for all of the support!


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